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Working Paper
Government budgetary policies, economic growth, and currency substitution in a small open economy
This paper compares the macroeconomic consequences of alternative government budgetary policies in a small open economy where agents transact in both domestic and foreign currencies. An endogenous growth model is used to rank the effects of income-tax-financed and inflation-tax-financed government expenditures on the economy?s growth and inflation rates. Currency substitution provides an avenue for inflation-tax evasion and affects the rankings of the two modes of government finance. The analysis reveals that an increase in the size of government reduces the growth rate of the economy ...
Working Paper
International transmission of anticipated inflation under alternative exchange-rate regimes
This paper studies the international transmission of anticipated inflation. A two-country, two-good, two-currency, cash-in-advance model is used to examine analytically and numerically the consequences of changes in a country's inflation rate. Domestic monetary policy influences real activity at home through an inflation-tax channel. These real effects are transmitted to the foreign country via fluctuations in the real exchange rate. Under a flexible nominal exchange rate, inflation is a beggar-thy-neighbor policy. Under a fixed nominal exchange rate, each country suffers a welfare loss when ...
Journal Article
Is the large U.S. current account deficit sustainable?
The U.S. current account deficit has grown steadily since 1991, hitting record levels of 3.6 percent of GDP in 1999 and 4.4 percent in 2000. In recent years, the growing deficits have increasingly raised concerns. For instance, most economists who took part in a recent Wall Street Journal forecasting survey agreed that the current account deficit is the major threat facing the U.S. economy. Some policymakers have also suggested that the large and growing U.S. current account deficit may be unsustainable and thus may create problems for the economy.> Holman examines the causes and consequences ...