The standard model of signaling used in open economy macroeconomics concentrates on building a reputation when a policymaker's `type' is unknown. Observing tough policy leads market participants to raise the probability that a policymaker is tough, and therefore to expect tough policy in the...

A political-economic model of the composition of government debt, that is, whether it is issued to domestic or foreign holders, is presented. The key determinant will be the political constraints on repudiation of foreign and domestic debt, which will determine the nature of the domestic...

Stabilization programs in open economies typically consist of two stages. In the first stage the rate of currency devaluation is reduced, but the fiscal adjustment does not eliminate the fiscal deficit which causes growth of debt and loss of reserves, making a future policy change necessary....

Both conventional wisdom and leading academic research view pork barrel spending as antithetical to responsible policymaking in times of crisis. In this paper we present an alternative view. When agents are heterogeneous in their ideology and in their information about the economic situation,...

We consider a model in which the level of taxes and seignorage are too low to finance government expenditures and debt service. Government debt will therefore grow without bound, implying the eventual need to change policy. Starting with utility maximization, we analyze the effect of the...