This article surveys the literature on sovereign debt sustainability from its origins in the mid-1980s to the present, focusing on four debates. First, the shift from an "accounting based" view of debt sustainability, evaluated using government borrowing rates, to a "model based" view which uses...

This paper analyzes the cause-and-effect relationships between the Fed’s balance sheet and consumer prices, and between the federal government debt and the Fed’s balance sheet during the period 2008Q1to 2021Q4. Although contemporaneous Fed purchases of public and private sector debt and...

The US Federal Reserve System is conventionally understood as a private-market stabilising institution that has no settled role in supporting the fiscal power of the Treasury. Contra that view, this article argues that the US central bank has always had an extensive fiscal role: building,...

This paper reviews the fiscal activities that governments in a sample of 26 developing countries have obliged their central banks to undertake. In the main, these activities fall under five categories: (1) collecting seigniorage; (2) imposing financial restriction; (3) implementing selective...