Men of finance raised funds for loans, asientos, to Philip II by trading short-term financial instruments in credit markets and by selling long-term annuities, juros. These activities are illustrated by an asiento with the Maluenda brothers (July 13, 1595), where short-term credit secured by the...

Two distinctive regimes are distinguished in Spain over half-a-millennium. A first one (1270s-1590s) corresponds to a high land-labour ratio frontier economy, pastoral, trade-oriented, and led by towns. Wages and food consumption were relatively high. Sustained per capita growth occurred from...

In their paper "Information Acquisition in Financial Markets" (this journal, 2000), Barlevy and Veronesi present a model of a one-period financial market, and claim that for an open set of parameter values, the value of information increases with the mass of informed agents. That claim is shown...

The optimal taxation problem is analyzed in a general equilibrium model of optimal growth. The private sector is represented by a single competitive household endowed with perfect foresight, and an infinite life. This household maximizes an intertemporal stationary utility function. Public...

The optimal capital income tax is analyzed in the framework of intertemporal efficient taxation. The relation between the zero tax in the long-run and the equality between private and social discount rates is emphasized. The properties of the dynamic second best path described for a specific...

The optimal inflation rate is analyzed in a simple model of intertemporal general equilibrium where agents have an operative bequest motive and taxation is distortionary. Monetary balances are used as a productive input, and agents have perfect foresight. The optimal value of the permanent...

A model is presented which is derived from some observations of Keynes on the nature of capital. The allocation of investment is analyzed in two economies with random demand shocks which are identical except for the types of markets. In the first, the combination of an asset and forward markets...