We examine the impact of different degrees of fiscal feedback on debt in an economy with nominal rigidities where monetary policy is optimal. We look at the extent to which different degrees of fiscal feedback enhance or detract from the ability of the monetary authorities to stabilize output...

The debate about the use of fiscal instruments for macroeconomic stabilization has regained prominence in the aftermath of the Great Recession, and the experience of a monetary union equipped with fiscal shock absorbers, such as the United States, has often been a reference. This paper enhances...

Debt in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) is at its highest level in half a century. In about nine out of 10 EMDEs, debt is higher now than it was in 2010 and, in half of the EMDEs, debt is more than 30 percentage points of gross domestic product higher. Historically, elevated...

We analyse the long-run imbalances of finance-dominated capitalism underlying the present crisis - which began in 2007 - with a focus on developments in the US and Germany. We argue that beyond inefficient regulation of the financial sector, the severeness of the present crisis has been mainly...

This paper analyzes the welfare costs of business cycles when workers face uninsurable idiosyncratic labor income risk. In accordance with the previous literature, this paper decomposes labor income risk into an aggregate and an idiosyncratic component, but in contrast to the previous...

This paper uses Hyman P. Minsky's approach to analyze the current international financial crisis, which was initiated by problems in the American real estate market. In a 1987 manuscript, Minsky had already recognized the importance of the trend toward securitization of home mortgages. This...

This paper traces the evolution of housing finance in the United States from the deregulation of the financial system in the 1970s to the breakdown of the savings and loan industry and the development of GSE (government-sponsored enterprise) securitization and the private financial system. The...

This paper estimates the impact on the US economy of four types of uncertainty about (i) government spending, (ii) tax changes, (iii) public debt sustainability and (iv) monetary policy. Following a one standard deviation shock, uncertainty about debt sustainability has the largest and most...

This paper explores how government size affects the scope for equilibrium indeterminacy in a New Keynesian economy where part of the population live hand-to-mouth. I find that in this framework, a larger public sector may widen the scope for self-fulfilling prophecies to occur. This takes place...

This paper traces the evolution of John Maynard Keynes's theory of the business cycle from his early writings in 1913 to his policy prescriptions for the control of fluctuations in the early 1940s. The paper identifies six different "theories" of business fluctuations. With different theoretical...