In this paper we investigate experimentally the effects of a wage tax financed unemployment benefit system on the development of the budget deficit, unemployment, and some other indicators of economic performance in an international economy. We find support for the hypothesis that out-of-equilibrium price uncertainty affects the behavior of economic agents. Due to uncertainty about prices risk-...

This paper explores the implications of the political economy model of Battaglini and Coate (2008) for the behavior of fiscal policy over the business cycle. The model predicts that fiscal policy is counter-cyclical with debt increasing in recessions and decreasing in booms. Public spending increases in booms and decreases during recessions, while tax rates decrease during booms and increase in...

Elected representatives have little incentive to pursue the interests of those electing them once they are elected. This well-known principle-agent problem leads, in a variety of theories of government, to nonoptimally large levels of government expenditure. An implication is that budgetary rules are seen as necessary to constrain politicians’ tax and spending behavior. Popular among such const...

This paper is motivated by an important puzzle that arises from the contrasting macroeconomic experience across developing regions in the recent decades. In sharp contrast to East Asia, the fiscal policies in much of Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa are characterized by large fiscal deficits and volatilities of fiscal outcomes. In order to address both large deficits and volatile fiscal out...

Physical currency (bills and coins) is being phased out as an important means of exchange both in developed and developing countries. Transactions are increasingly done by debit card, computer, and mobile phone. This technologically driven process opens up some very useful possibilities, among these new and – for society – beneficial roles for the Central Bank. The paper assumes a scenario wher...

We present new R filtered CCD observations of 5 faint and moderately faint asteroids carried out between October, 1998 and January, 1999. The achieved accuracy is between 0.01–0.03 mag, depending mainly on the target brightness. The obtained sinodic periods and amplitudes: 683 Lanzia – 4. h6±0. 2, 0.13 mag; 725 Amanda – > 3. 0, ≥0.40 mag; 852 Wladilena – 4. h62±0. 01, 0.32 mag (December, 1998) ...