Government Revenue from Financial Repression

Alberto Giovannini, Martha de Melo

NBER Working Paper No. 3604
Issued in January 1991
NBER Program(s):   PE   ITI   ME   IFM

This paper presents an analysis of the theoretical underpinnings and the relevance of the phenomenon of financial repression from a public-finance perspective. The analysis explicitly accounts for the interaction between capital controls and financial repression. The proposed empirical estimate of the revenue from financial repression is based on the difference between the domestic and the foreign cost of borrowing of the government. The correlations of the revenue from financial repression with inflation, exchange rates and per-capita income are discussed.

(458 K)

Published: American Economic Review, Vol. 83, no. 4 (1993): 953-963.

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