In a deterministic overlapping-generations economy with production and physical capital, the price of debt can be positive without any budget surpluses being in the offing, because debt incorporates a rational bubble. Yet the dynamics of debt remain a function of the dynamics of the primary...

Interest rates on public debt have for several years now fallen short of GDP growth rates in much of the Western world. In his presidential address to the AEA Blanchard argued that this implies that there are no fiscal costs to high debt (Blanchard, 2019).1 In this paper we argue that the safe...

This paper examines equilibrium determination under different monetary policy regimes when the government might default on its debt. We apply a cash-in-advance model where the government does not have access to non-distortionary taxation and does not account for initial outstanding debt when it...

We examine monetary policy options for a small open economy where sovereign default might occur due to intertemporal insolvency. Under interest rate policy and floating exchange rates the equilibrium is indetermined. Under a fixed exchange rate the equilibrium is uniquely determined and...

Whether fiscal policy is sustainable depends on a government's future revenue and expenditure streams, both of which are highly uncertain. In commodity-rich countries, this problem is intensified by unpredictable and volatile commodity prices. We show how spending rules for oil income and...

This paper investigates the impact of the recent global recession on European countries and regions. We first present several stylized facts as to the heterogeneous impact of the global recession on individual European countries and regions. We then offer an investigation of three main classes...