The optimal inflation tax is reexamined in the framework of dynamic second best economy populated by individuals with inflation aversion. A simple formula for the optimal inflation rate is derived. Different from the literature, it is shown that if the marginal excess burden of other distorting...

This paper explores the implications of hyperbolic discounting for asset prices and rates of return. Hyperbolic discounting has no effect on the equity premium. However, by making people less patient, causes stock prices to be lower, and interest rates higher, than with exponential discounting....

This paper surveys the literature and assesses the magnitude, persistence, and depth of poverty and inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa using empirical analysis. Our analysis explores linkages between three key facts about development in Sub-Saharan Africa: poor economic growth, poor performance in...

This paper aims to enhance the understanding of provincial tax performance in China, paying special attention to the recent fiscal reforms in the 1980s and in 1994. Using provincial panel data for the period 1986-2004, our analysis consists of two steps. First, a combined fixed time effects and...

This paper studies capital accumulation and consumption in the traditional Ramsey model under an exogenous growth framework. The model has three important features: (1) treating health as a simple function of consumption, which enable the study of health and growth in an aggregate macroeconomic...

This paper sets up a theoretical model linking the growth rate of the economy to the growth rate and volatility of different government expenditures. On a theoretical basis, it is found that volatility in government spending can be positively or negatively associated with economic growth...

This paper sheds light on the heavy financial burden on peasants in China's fiscal decentralization system. Using a political economy framework, this paper explores the tax-farming nature of China's fiscally decentralized system and examines why the system incurs a particularly heavy financial...

We model creative destruction as a channel via which credit inflation affects growth. With a demand function for real credit, there is a dynamically consistent revenue-maximizing rate of credit inflation. A higher semi-elasticity of real credit demand with respect to credit inflation yields a...

We argue that how inward foreign direct investment (FDI) affects domestic human capital accumulation (HCA) depends on the degree of financial deregulation. Utilizing the Chinese experience and its panel data, the OLS (ordinary least squares) regressions suggest that FDI has a significant...

Using the Chinese financial deregulation experience during the post-reform period, we find robust evidence that growth is inverted-U related to the degree of financial deregulation. The inverted-U shape holds up when we control for conditional convergence, other growth determinants, and time and...