Macroeconomic theory postulates that fiscal deficits cause inflation. Yet empirical research has had limited success in uncovering this relationship. This paper reexamines the issue in light of broader data and a new modeling approach that incorporates two key features of the theory. Unlike previous studies, we model inflation as nonlinearly related to fiscal deficits through the inflation tax base and estimate this relationship as intrinsically dynamic, using panel techniques that explicitly distinguish between short- and long-run effects of fiscal deficits. Results spanning 107 countries over 1960-2001 show a strong positive association between deficits and inflation among high-inflation and developing country groups, but not among low-inflation advanced economies.

A New York Times Bestseller The leading thinker and most visible public advocate of modern monetary theory -- the freshest and most important idea about economics in decades -- delivers a radically different, bold, new understanding for how to build a just and prosperous society. Stephanie Kelton's brilliant exploration of modern monetary theory (MMT) dramatically changes our understanding of how we can best deal with crucial issues ranging from poverty and inequality to creating jobs, expanding health care coverage, climate change, and building resilient infrastructure. Any ambitious proposal, however, inevitably runs into the buzz saw of how to find the money to pay for it, rooted in myths about deficits that are hobbling us as a country. Kelton busts through the myths that prevent us from taking action: that the federal government should budget like a household, that deficits will harm the next generation, crowd out private investment, and undermine long-term growth, and that entitlements are propelling us toward a grave fiscal crisis. MMT, as Kelton shows, shifts the terrain from narrow budgetary questions to one of broader economic and social benefits. With its important new ways of understanding money, taxes, and the critical role of deficit spending, MMT redefines how to responsibly use our resources so that we can maximize our potential as a society. MMT gives us the power to imagine a new politics and a new economy and move from a narrative of scarcity to one of opportunity.

"Inflation, in which all prices and wages in an economy rise, is mysterious. If a war breaks out in the Middle East, and the price of oil goes up, the mechanism is no great mystery-supply and demand often work pretty visibly. But if you ask the grocer why the price of bread is higher, he or she will blame the wholesaler, who will blame the baker, who will blame the wheat supplier, and so on. Perhaps the ultimate cause is a government printing more money, but there is really no way to know this for certain but to sit down in an office with statistics, armed with some decent economic theory. But current economic theory doesn't really explain why we haven't seen inflation for so long, and more and more economists think that current theory doesn't hold together, or provide much guidance for how central banks should behave if inflation does break out. Many also worry that central banks have much less power over the economy than they think they do, and much less understanding of the mechanism behind what power they do have. The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level is a comprehensive new approach to monetary policy. Economist John Cochrane argues that money has value because the government accepts it for tax payments. This insight, he argues, leads to a deep re-reading of monetary policy and institutions. Inflation comes when a government is unable to repay its debts, rather than from mismanagement of the split of debt between money and bonds. In the book, he will analyze institutional design, historical episodes, and compare fiscal theory to the Keynesian and new-Keynesian theory based on interest rate targets, and to monetarism. The book offers an overview and introduction to the range of contemporary monetary economics and history of thought as well as the fiscal theory"--

Fiscal policy seeks to equilibrate the public sector's financing needs with the private sector's demand for investment and a sustainable balance of payments. Correct measurement of the public sector's net use of resources is therefore an important prerequisite for managing the macroeconomy. This volume, edited by Mario I. Blejer and Adrienne Cheasty, is organized around four issues: the adequacy of summary measures of the fiscal deficit, conventional and adjusted deficits, coverage (size) of the public sector, and the public sector's intertemporal budget constraint.

On October 29 and 30, 1982, the Center for the Study of American Business and the Institute for Banking and Financial Markets at Washington "The Economic Consequences of University cosponsored a conference on Government Deficits. " This was the sixth annual Economic Policy Con ference sponsored by the Center, and the first it has cosponsored with the Institute. This book contains the papers and comments delivered at that conference. Recent and prospective large federal deficits have prompted a thorough reconsideration of the political sources and economic consequences of government deficits. The papers in Part I focus on the implications of deficits for monetary growth and inflation, and the papers in Part II consider the effect of deficits on interest rates and capital formation. The papers in Part III deal with the political sources and remedies for the explosive growth in government spending and increased reliance on deficits. The papers in Part I by Alan S. Blinder, Professor of Economics at Princeton University, and Preston J. Miller, Assistant Vice President and Research Advisor at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, discuss the relation between monetary growth and deficits and present evidence on the of deficits on inflation and output. A deficit is said to be monetized effects vii viii THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF GOVERNMENT DEFICITS when the Federal Reserve purchases bonds to aid the Treasury in financing the deficit.

At the time in which this book was first published in 1992, there was a major concern with the macro-economic implications of fiscal imbalance. As the European economies moved closer to monetary union, and Germany grappled with the fiscal pressures of unification, deficits in the United States exceeded $300 billion. In this volume the authors address this issue, using both historical case-studies and cross-national comparisons. This book will be of interest to students of economics.