In this paper we present a full characterization of the growth process in a small open economy under political economy frictions and where politicians cannot commit to debt repayment or tax promises. We study how the dynamics are affected by the curvature of the utility function, the strength of...

We study optimal fiscal policy in a small open economy (SOE) with sovereign and private default risk. The SOE's government uses linear taxation to fund exogenous expenditures and uses public debt to inter-temporally allocate tax distortions. We characterize a class of environments in which the...

Researchers have documented that in the recent financial crisis the large decline in economic activity and credit has been accompanied by a large increase in the dispersion of growth rates across firms. We build a quantitative general equilibrium model in which financial frictions interact with...