Introduction 1. The long-run historical record 2. International perspective: the role of growth and fiscal policy 3. Other reasons for the decline in saving 3.1 Credit and insurance markets 3.2 Social security 3.3 Demographic factors 4. Do micro data help us to understand the decline in saving?

This paper uses a model with a continuum of equilibrium steady state unemployment rates to explore the effectiveness of fiscal policy. The existence of multiple steady state equilibria is explained by the presence of search and recruiting costs. I use the model to explain the current financial crisis as a shift to a high unemployment equilibrium, induced by the self-fulfilling beliefs of market...

It is an honor and privilege to address you as president of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. For more than 100 years, this organization has represented the best of physician-scientists. Since it is now 2012, there is the possibility that this could be the last ASCI presidential address. But we will assume the Mayans miscalculated and that we should look to the future. With the A...

In recent decades political and economic interest has focused on a phenomenon known as the ‘growth of government’, a euphemism for rising public expenditure. Studies that have focused on the process are broadly classified into three distinct areas those that highlight the phenomenon (Saunders and Klau, 1985); those that identify the contributory factors (Henrekson, 1990) and those that embrace ...

57 National Tax Journal Vol. LIV, No. 1 Abstract This paper tests whether state and local fiscal policy depended on the number of seats in the legislature in the first half of the 20th century. We find that large legislatures spent more, as implied by the “Law of 1/n” from the fiscal commons/logrolling literature. The same relation appears in the latter half of the century, and therefore seems ...

In a passive monetary and active fiscal policy regime, changes in the value of public debt generate wealth effects on households. Then, in contrast to the active monetary and passive fiscal policy regime, inflation moves oppositely from the inflation target and a stronger reaction of interest rates to inflation increases the response of inflation to shocks. Moreover, a higher level of public de...

We develop a simple macroeconomic model where the time inconsistency of optimal monetary policy is due to tax distortions. If fiscal policy is exogenously fixed at its optimal level, a Walsh contract (Walsh, 1995) offered to an independent central bank implements the optimal monetary policy. When fiscal policy is determined endogenously, however, this contract is subject to strategic manipulati...

Canzoneri, Cumby, and Diba have written a very good paper on the relationship between fiscal and monetary policy. It is informative, clear, and persuasive. As the title indicates, the analysis deals exclusively with the cases of the United States and the European Union (EU). In a way, however, these are the countries where the discussion on the connection between fiscal and monetary policy is l...

Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-2 Consolidated Balance Sheets as of March 31, 2003 and 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F-3 Consolidated Statements of Operations for the Fiscal Years ended March 31, 2002, 2003 and 2004 . . . . . . F-4 Consolidated S...