This paper examines Keynes's thoughts on the economic causes of war. Though an issue upon which the classical economists and their popularisers wrote much, the links between economics and war has become, beyond an unthinking acceptance of the pacific qualities of free trade, an issue largely...

This paper tells you everything you need to know in order to impress your friends with your knowledge of the most famous people and the useful past of the subject of economics. However, it is recommended that this paper should not be read in the company of anyone who reads dusty old books, and...

In this paper I look in some detail at one specific aspect of macro distribution theories, namely Keynes's Macro theory of profits.

This study assesses debt sustainability in South Africa allowing for possible nonlinearities in the form of threshold behaviour by fiscal authorities. A long historical data series on the debt-to-GDP ratio and models with fixed and time-varying thresholds allowing the level of debt to vary...

We present a model in which a conservative incumbent with preferences for low public spending can strategically run a budget deficit to prevent the left-wing opposition candidate from choosing high public spending if elected, and possibly also to ensure his own reelection. We find that the...

Poland adopted a new pension system in 1999. This new pension system allows Poland to reduce pension expenditure (as a percent of GDP), instead of increasing it – as is projected for the majority of other OECD countries. This paper presents the conceptual background of the new system design....

This paper examines data on Australian fiscal policy going back to federation to answer two question. First, has the conduct of Australian fiscal policy been consistent with the government's intertemporal budget constraint? Second, have there been major structural changes in the conduct of...

We assess the sustainability of public finances in the EU15 over the period 1970-2006 using stationarity and cointegration analysis. Specifically, we use panel unit root tests of the first and second generation allowing in some cases for structural breaks. We also apply modern panel...

In this paper we describe a method to decompose a well-known measure of debt ratings mobility into it’s directional components. We show, using sovereign debt ratings as an example, that this directional decomposition allows us to better understand the underlying characteristics of debt ratings...

Measures of core inflation convey critical information about an economy. They have a direct effect on the policy-making process, particularly in inflation-targeting countries, and are utilized in forecasting and modelling exercises. In South a Africa the prices indices on which inflation is...