How are the optimal tax and debt policies affected if the government has the option to default on its debt? We address this question from a normative perspective in an economy with noncontingent government debt, domestic default and labor taxes. On one hand, default prevents the government from...

We provide an equilibrium framework for modeling the behavior of an agent who holds a simplified view of a dynamic optimization problem. The agent faces a Markov Decision Process, where a transition probability function determines the evolution of a state variable as a function of the previous...

We introduce a solution concept in the context of large elections with private information by embedding a model of boundedly rational voters into an otherwise standard equilibrium setting. A retrospective voting equilibrium (RVE) formalizes the idea that voters evaluate alternatives based on...

In a dynamic economy, we characterize the fiscal policy of the government when it levies distortionary taxes and issues defaultable bonds to finance its stochastic expenditure. Households anticipate the possibility of default, generating endogenous debt limits that hinder the government's...