Strategic interjurisdictional behavior and the interaction over time of the mean and dispersion of average tax rates across states are analyzed in a vector autoregression model. Variance decompositions reveal that fiscal competition explains roughly one-third of the time variation of state and...

Poor performance by the financial sector can be costly for society. On the other hand, a healthy banking sector has been thought by some to contribute to the growth of the economy. Recently, though, economists have begun to analyze new elements of the linkages between the financial and real...

This article examines whether price indexes, such as the CPI, the PPI, and the implicit price deflator for GDP (PGDP), tell a consistent story about the general price level and inflation rate. To this end, Zsolt Becsi analyzes the time series properties of these indexes. He finds that the PGDP...

Much of the 1992 presidential campaign focused on which fiscal policies would best promote economic growth. In this article, Zsolt Becsi develops an analytical and graphical framework to evaluate the long- and short-run effects of a variety of taxation and expenditure policies. ; Becsi shows...

Many existing theories of financial intermediation have difficulty explaining why financial activity can generate large real effects. This paper argues that the large real effects may reflect a multiplicity of equilibria. The multiple equilibria in this paper are generated by the dynamic...

What happens when liquidity increases in credit markets and more funds are channeled from borrowers to lenders? We examine this question in a general equilibrium model where financial matchmakers help borrowers (firms) and lenders (households) search out and negotiate profitable matches and...

The welfare costs of dynamic factor taxes are analyzed in a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous endowments, abilities, and tastes. Conventional functional form restrictions yield formulas for the transition effects and marginal welfare costs of factor taxes. Heterogeneity...

We develop a simple analytical framework where the longevity of profit-maximizing firms requires costly resources. We show that a firm's longevity and value are positively related to the firm''s pricing power, cash reserves, honesty, and ratio of equity to debt financing.