Several recent papers suggest that the negative association between natural resource intensity and economic growth can be reversed if institutional quality is high enough. We try to understand this result in more detail by decomposing the resource measure, using alternative measures of both...

Governments perpetually align their policies to satisfy shifts in voters' relative demand for economic growth versus social equality. Following such shifts, increases (decreases) in government interventions lower (raise) both inequality and growth. This mechanism generates a positive co-movement...

I exploit a reform that required Italian municipalities to disclose their balance sheetsbefore elections to study whether having more informed voters aects the political budgetcycle. To start, investment spending in the year before elections is 28.5% higher thanin the election year and this...

Using American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) data, we show that firms lever their political connections to win stimulus grants and that public expenditure channeled through politically connected firms hinders job creation. We build a unique database that links information on campaign...

This paper describes the political economy of shadow banking and how it relates to the dramatic institutional changes experienced by global capitalism over past 100 years. We suggest that the dynamics of shadow banking rest on the distributive tension between workers and firms. Politics wedge...

We consider an economy where individuals face uninsurable risks to their human capital accumulation and study the problem of determining the optimal level of linear taxes on capital and labor income together with the optimal path of the debt level. We show both analytically and numerically that...

The worst global downturn since the Great Depression has caused ballooning budget deficits in most nations, as tax revenues collapse and governments bail out financial institutions and attempt countercyclical fiscal policy. With notable exceptions, most economists accept the desirability of...

We trace the reasons for the negative development of Greek government debt from 1980 to 2014 by studying the deficits of the Greek state under the same period. We also see the Greek debt under the different political regimes. We briefly describe the two bailout programs for Greece and finally we...

We introducing the new idea, of "@-euro" is a self-part-financiering monetary policy. This new idea, introduced more money (liquidity) to Greek state, and a system to collect taxes from the black economy. This idea, which is a possible solution to the Greek Crisis applied in a 7-years...

This paper presents a stock-flow-consistent model in which growth is led by exports and government expenditure. It considers domestic and external debt dynamics and gross capital flows. Countries may choose to not fully use their external space to accumulate international reserves. The model is...