Politica macroeconomica y analisis de las cuentas del sector publico entre 1970-87, balance con relacion a las exportaciones de cafe, deficit fiscal, inflacion y tasas de interes.

Ten case studies suggest that two unorthodox methods of deficit financing - inflation tax and financial repression - are both ineffective in raising revenue and disruptive of macroeconomic stability. Fiscal stabilization leads to both higher private consumption and increased investment and to external adjustment - characterized by a lower trade deficit and a depreciated real exchange rate.

In developing countries, fiscal policy - in particular, the reduction of public sector deficits - has been a key element of stabilization and adjustment programs. An empirical analysis of fiscal deficits in Ghana, where they have been a prominent feature, reveals their significant effects on both the real and finincial sides of the economy.

Pakistan's fiscal deficit remains high because of the government's inability to mobilize new resources or to cut current expenditures. Yet, unlike other developing countries with high fiscal deficits, Pakistan has experienced neither hyperinflation nor debt rescheduling. This can be attributed to high growth and to the availability of concessional external financing and domestic nonbank borrowing.

To improve growth prospects in Zimbabwe, foreign trade must be reformed and the country's high public deficits - which crowd out private consumption and private investment- must be reduced.

Chile's success suggests that fiscal stabilization is prerequisite for structural reform - and that structural reform need not be postponed until stabilization is fully achieved.

This is the ninth in a series of annuals from the National Bureau of Economic Research that are designed to stimulate research on problems in applied economics, to bring frontier theoretical developments to a wider audience, and to accelerate the interaction between analytical and empirical research in macroeconomics. Contents On the Speed of Transition in Eastern Europe, Philippe Aghion and Olivier Jean Blanchard * The Costs of Business Cycles with Incomplete Markets, Andrew Atkeson and Christopher Phelan * The U.S. Fiscal Problem: Where We Are, How We Got Here and Where We Are Going, Alan Auerbach * The East Asian Miracle Economies, John Page * What Ends Recessions? Christina Romer and David Romer * Toward a Modern Macroeconomic Model Usable for Policy Analysis, Christopher Sims and Eric Leeper