This paper applies the theory of rent seeking to argue that economic reform, in the sense of correcting past deformities in the economy, does not pay from a social point of view. Economic reform, at best, should focus on the prevention of future deformities. The analysis is developed in terms of...

The postwar literature on public debt is characterized by controversy among Keynesian, classical, and new classical positions. This paper seeks to reconcile these bodies of literature by showing that the analytical antagonisms stem from an excessive aggregation that is common to them all. In the...