We set out a simple four sector macro model of the economy of the Roman Empire during a period of considerable economic prosperity. Our focus is on gold coins as currency and the seignorage which the government used to fund its activities. We solve numerically for a balanced growth...

We present an aggregate four good model (consumption, investment and two government goods) in which the current flows of one government good are in part pure public intermediate goods. The other public good has "final" services for households. We are interested in a benefit approach to charging...

Governments fund public universities based on the number of registered students and lump sum transfers. Such policy induces universities to compete for student recruitment. I show that such rule can lead to an inefficient allocation of resources in which universities compete for the same...

This paper establishes a theoretical model to examine the LOLR policy when a central bank cannot distinguish between solvent and insolvent banks. We study two cases: a case where the central bank cannot screen insolvent banks and a case where the central bank can only imperfectly screen...

Much research studies US inflation history with a trend-cycle model with unobserved components. A key feature of this model is that the trend may be viewed as the Fed's evolving inflation target or long-horizon expected inflation. We provide a new way to measure the slowly evolving trend and the...

I derive a rigorous method to help determine whether a true parameter takes a value between two arbitrarily chosen points for a given level of confidence via a multiple testing procedure which strongly controls the familywise error rate. For any test size, the distance between the upper and...

It has been a challenge for the Limpopo Provincial Government to tackle the eradication of poverty and the acceleration of the pace of economic growth in the province. It is of importance for the Government to provide the basic infrastructure facilities such as roads, water, electricity, and...

Over the past decade, South Africa has experienced a rising pace of economic and social development which has facilitated the expansion of the basic social programs, especially in health and education. The education sector has been given a high priority by the National and Provincial authorities...

Important as it is for public policy, there is still no consensus about the size of the revenue-maximizing tax rate at the top of the Laffer curve. The purpose of this essay is not to supply a correct rate, but to identify difficulties in doing so. 1) Estimates of the revenue-maximizing tax rate...

We examine optimal information flows between a manager and a worker who is in charge of evaluating a parameter of interest, e.g. the value of a project. The manager may possesses information about the parameter, and, if informed, may divulge her information to the worker. We show that...