This paper characterizes empirically how government budget variables, such as spending, taxes, and deficits, affected private-sector consumption in the high-budget-deficit economy of Israel during the first half of the 1980s. The paper develops and estimates an intertemporal optimizing model of...

The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical answers to questions related to the propagation of shocks in a high-inflation economy. Do one-time inflationary shocks give rise to long-term persistence, or inertia? Do balance of payments' shocks trigger a process that, through indexation and...

The purpose of this paper is to develop and estimate a stochastic-intertemporal model of consumption behavior and to use it for testing a version of the Ricardian-equivalence proposition with time series data. Two channels that may give rise to deviations from this proposition are specified:...

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic optimizing model of the current account. The model focuses, on real factors that determine the evolution of saving and investment, and hence the external balance. Three types of shocks are at the center of the analysis: productivity shocks, shocks to...

This paper's purpose is to develop and estimate a stochastic, intertemporal model of consumption be havior and to use it for testing a version of the Ricardian-equivalen ce proposition with time-series data. Two channels that may give rise to deviations from this proposition are specified:...

While the Israeli stabilization of 1985 has received significant attention in previous work, much less is known about the process of financial opening and liberalization which began shortly afterwards. In contrast to the disinflation policy of 1985, the process of financial liberalization that...

This paper derives and tests the restrictions implied by an optimizing model of currency substitution under nonexpected utility using quarterly data for Israel from 1978 to 1988. We find that the elasticity of intertemporal substitution is less than one, the elasticity of currency substitution...