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Conference Paper
Optimal fiscal policy in a monetary union - comments
Journal Article
Postwar stability: fact or fiction:
Journal Article
October 6, 1979
Twenty-five years ago, on October 6, 1979, the Federal Reserve adopted new policy procedures that led to skyrocketing interest rates and two back-to-back recessions but that also broke the back of inflation and ushered in the environment of low inflation and general economic stability the United States has enjoyed for nearly two decades. The dramatic policy actions by the Federal Reserve in 1979 represented an important break with the past, both in the way monetary policy was conducted and in the importance placed on controlling inflation. This Economic Letter discusses the context within ...
Working Paper
Testing intertemporal budget constraints: theory and applications to U. S. federal budget and current account deficits
Previous tests of intertemporal budget balance and present value relationships have generally assumed either a constant discount rate or a constant expected discount rate. Empirical applications of these tests to the study of U.S. government deficits have produced conflicting results. This paper extends this recent work by deriving a testable condition that is sufficient to ensure intertemporal budget balance as long as the expected discount rate is strictly positive. ; We use our test to ask whether the U.S. budget and current account deficits are sustainable. Using postwar annual data, we ...
Working Paper
Borrowing restrictions and wealth constraints: implications for aggregate consumption
Recent empirical studies have found that consumption is more sensitive to current income than simple versions of the life-cycle, permanent income hypothesis would predict. The present paper studies a model in which the fraction of consumers exhibiting excess sensitivity is endogenously determined. The presence of income uncertainty and restrictions on borrowing are shown to generate a distribution of consumption across individuals which is consistent with the recent empirical evidence. The aggregate fraction of consumers facing a binding borrowing constraint is shown to exhibit positive ...
Journal Article
Minding the speed limit
Journal Article
Examining the recent surge in M1
Journal Article
Do deficits matter?