Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 March 2020
The central focus of this paper is on the conduct of fiscal policy. But the influence of fiscal policy cannot sensibly be examined separately from other aspects of macroeconomic policy, such as monetary, exchange rate and incomes policies. Because of this, we the opportunity to range quite widely. Two broad themes emerge. The first concerns the consequences of consistent forward-looking expectations for the design of policy. The second concerns the global consequences of adopting generally in many countries policy rules designed in the single open economy context. Since policy appraisal is usually conducted in the single economy context, and policy design with consistent expectations is still relatively underdeveloped, it is useful to take stock of these two issues.