In this paper I use national accounts data from nineteen OECD countries to test the existence and measure the importance of liquidity constraints. This is accomplished by nesting a fraction of current income consumers in the permanent income model. The generalized method of moments (GMM) used in...

This paper presents an empirical investigation of the role of credit in the post-stabilization consumption booms of Mexico, Chile and Israel. Credit from the banking sector to the private sector expanded very rapidly following the stabilizations. I show that this increase in credit reduced the...

Almost all of the recent empirical tests of the rational expectations - permanent income hypothesis (RE-PIH) have rejected the hypothesis. The null hypothesis in this empirical literature typically consists of the joint hypothesis that 1) agents' expectations are formed rationally, 2) desired...

Die Arbeit nimmt die in jüngster Zeit vor allem in den USA er- hobenen Forderungen nach einer verfassungsmässigen Begrenzung der Staatstätigkeit zum Ausgangspunkt für eine systematische Analyse der Vor- und Nachteile einer institutionellen Fixierung der Staats- quote. Grundlagen sind dabei...