Recent studies of the Fisher relation have yielded contradictory conclusions on the importance of taxes in determining the long-run response of nominal interest rates to changes in expected inflation. This study uses data on taxable U.S. treasury and tax exempt municipal bond interest rates to...

The Tax Act of 1986 changed the tax treatment of tax-exempt municipal bonds for banks. Since banks were the dominant participant in the municipal bond market until 1986, some believe that this resulted in the breakdown of the long-run equilibrium relationship between municipal and U.S. treasury...

Are nominal bonds appropriately discounted for taxes? Empirical estimates of the response of nominal interest rates to changes in inflation, the Fisher effect, have failed to produce a definitive answer. Four reasons have been put forward as possible explanations: (i) Tobin effects, (ii) fiscal...

This paper tests the stability of the U.S. federal intertemporal budget constraint over the postwar period. The implied equilibrium budget path is estimated and used to determine which component of the budget has greater responsibility for the recent intertemporal violations.

type="main" xml:lang="en" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>Persistent deviations of exchange rates from equilibrium values may lead to inefficient resource allocations internationally. Such persistence is well documented and represents a challenge for policy makers. If the source of the persistent deviations is real...</p>

Using a simple cointegrated vector autoregression (VAR) I find strong evidence for a liquidity effect at policy relevant time horizons with a broad monetary aggregate. The liquidity effect is present for both nominal and real interest rates.