The empirical and theoretical literature on long-term relationships in public finance is dominated by two approaches: Fiscal sustainability and Wagner's law of an increasing state activity. In this paper, we argue that these two relationships should be analyzed simultaneously and not separately....

The recent global financial crisis has increased interest in macroeconomic models that incorporate financial linkages. Here, we compare the simulation properties of five mediumsized general equilibrium models used in Eurosystem central banks which incorporate such linkages. The financial...

We provide an analysis that might help distinguish rationally justified movements in house prices from potentially non-rational movements, using a two-sector business cycle model, in which investment in housing is subject to collateral constraints. A large portion of the evolution of U.S. house...

Households' insurance against shocks to income and asset values (that is, household risk management) is limited, especially for poor households. We argue that a trade-off between intertemporal financing needs and insurance across states explains this basic insurance pattern. In a model with...

Although a growing theoretical literature points to credit constraints as an important source of inefficiently high child labor, little work has been done to assess its empirical relevance. Using panel data from Tanzania, Beegle, Dehejia, and Gatti find that households respond to transitory...

Analysis of data for Brazil suggests that poverty responds asymmetrically to output shocks, showing less tendency to fall in response to a positive shock when the economy is initially in a downturn.Agenor examines whether output contractions associated with cyclical output fluctuations and...