A model is presented in which governments can select real expenditure levels that are feasible, but are sufficiently high that a balanced budget is impossible. Thus, governments with large expenditures are committed to inflationary finance schemes. This is the case, even though the governments in question have access to lump-sum taxes. In addition, the model can explain why poorer countries tend to make heavier use of the inflation tax than do wealthier countries, and can account for the existence of country-specific fiat monies. The government that does not have access to the printing press can, nonetheless, use emergency taxes or compulsory loans for emergency financing. S.Fischer [1982, p. 297]

This paper tests for the existence of wage premiums based on geographic and industry unemployment differences. These differences are broken down into permanent and transitory components in equations controlling for variation in state generosity of unemployment insurance benefits. Findings indicate that wage premiums arise for long-run unemployment differences, but that negative short-run shocks to industries generate wage cuts, while positive shocks generate wage hikes. Therefore, labor contracts accommodate long-term anticipated unemployment, and entail sharing of short-term unemployment risks.

This paper examines the welfare economics of producer behavior under risk aversion. Hicksian, Marshallian, and money equivalent measures are explored. It is found that under decreasing absolute risk aversion, compensating variation is less than the ordinary Marshallian surplus, which is less than the money equivalent measure. Under constant absolute risk aversion all measures coincide. Finally, bounds on compensating and equivalent variations using ordinary producer surplus in a manner analogous to Willige approach in consumer theory under certainty are studied. Similar results hold, mutatis mutandis, for input demands.

A two-person, two-period general equilibrium model with uncertainty about second-period labor productivity is developed. The model is used to consider potential welfare (Pareto) gains from both a stylized unemployment insurance system and from a negative income tax system. Welfare gains are possible if individuals are sufficiently homogeneous. When both programs are operated simultaneously, complete insurance is always feasible but is optimal only if the labor supply curve is negatively sloped.