I study the implications of different institutional frameworks for the conduct of fiscal policy, under the assumption that the government cannot commit to future policy choices. The environments analyzed vary on whether the government is endowed with the ability to commit to beginning-of-period...

I study how the general and specific details of a micro founded monetary framework affect the determination of policy when the government has limited commitment. The conduct of policy depends on the interaction between the incentive to smooth distortions intertemporally and a time-consistency...

Who prevails when fiscal and monetary authorities disagree about the value of public expenditure and how much to discount the future? When the fiscal authority sets debt as its main policy instrument it achieves fiscal dominance, rendering the preferences of the central bank, and thus its...

This paper investigates how institutional constraints discipline the behavior of discretionary governments subject to an expenditure bias. The focus is on constraints implemented in actual economies: monetary policy targets, limits on the deficit and debt ceilings. For a variety of aggregate...