This paper presents a brief overview of the extant fiscal situation in South Asian countries. In particular, I emphasize low tax/GDP ratios and inelastic expenditure/GDP ratios which then lead to structurally entrenched fiscal deficits. The paper also reports on the sustainability of fiscal and...

This paper investigates the validity of the hypothesis that suggests there is a link between fiscal deficits and inflation in developing countries and further explores this link in the absence of public sector wage expenditure. Sri Lanka, a developing country with a persistent fiscal deficit, a...

This lecture deals not with the causes of the world financial crisis nor how to forecast or avoid one in the future, nor how to revive the financial sector, but rather with the crucial emergency "ambulance" policy of fiscal stimulus. What are the main effects of stimuli policies, and, in...

In the 1970s-1980s, monetary authorities were usually more active than their fiscal counterparts. After some crises, fiscal policy is currently regaining its role in implementing economic policies. As a sequel to estimating the Indian monetary reaction function, this paper models and estimates a...

This paper presents a broad overview of fiscal issues confronting developing countries. Three of these are (i) developing countries have low tax/GDP and expenditure/GDP ratios compared to developed countries, even though developing countries need more public expenditure; (ii) developing country...

This paper studies the interaction between capital income taxation and a means tested age pension in the context of an overlapping generations model, calibrated to the UK economy. Recent literature has suggested a rehabilitation of capital income taxation (Conesa et al. (2009)), predicated on...

Export led growth has been very effective in modernising China’s economy and establishing a large high-saving middle class. Notwithstanding political opposition from trading partners, this growth strategy has also offered the rest of the world an improved terms of trade and cheaper finance....

We consider the fiscal multiplier and spillover in an environment in which two countries are caught simultaneously in a liquidity trap. Using a standard New Open Economy Macroeconomics (NOEM) model, an optimizing two-country sticky price model, we show that the fiscal multiplier and spillover...

In this paper, we show that consumption externalities are a source of equilibrium indeterminacy in a growth model with endogenous labor supply. In particular, when the marginal rate of substitution between own consumption and the others' consumption is constant along the equilibrium path, the...

This paper provides new evidence on the effects of fiscal policy by studying, using household-level data, how households respond to shifts in government spending. Our identification strategy allows us to control for time-specific aggregate effects, such as the stance of monetary policy or the...