With integrated trade and financial markets, a collapse in aggregate demand in a large country can cause "natural real interest rates" to fall below zero in all countries, giving rise to a global "liquidity trap." This paper explores the optimal policy response to this type of shock, when...

Remarks before the Dallas Friday Group, Dallas, Texas, April 11, 2006 ; "Competition brings benefits to the public sector the same way it does the private sector. Because factors of production are increasingly mobile in an era of globalization, governments vie to gain and hold onto them. Mobile...

Remarks to the 2007 Annual Conference of the Investment Adviser Association, Austin, Texas, April 26, 2007 ; "Many options would improve the fiscal fitness of our entitlement system and reduce the need for drastic action elsewhere in the federal budget. But let's be honest. These remedies work...

The literature has argued that developing countries are unable to adopt counter-cyclical monetary and fiscal policies due to financial imperfections and unfavorable politicaleconomy conditions. Using a world sample of 115 industrial and developing countries for 1984-2008, we find that the level...

Remarks before the Society of American Business Editors and Writers 2011 Annual Conference, Dallas, Texas, April 8, 2011 ; In the fall of 2006, I was asked to draw upon some 30 years of experience in Germany and speak at the American Academy in Berlin, addressing the question: “Is Germany’s...

This paper studies the effects of monetary policy rules in a monetary union. The focus of the analysis is on the interaction between the fiscal policy of member countries (regions) and the central monetary authority. When capital markets are integrated, the fiscal policy of one country will...

This paper examines the role of fiscal stabilization policy in a two-country framework that allows for a general degree of exchange rate pass-through. I derive analytical solutions for optimal monetary and fiscal policy which are shown to depend on the degree of pass-through. In the case of...