This paper develops a new method for approximating dynamic competitive equilibria in economies in which competitive equilibrium is not necessarily Pareto optimal. The method involves finding approximate equilibrium policy functions by iterating on the stochastic Euler equations which characterize the economy's equilibrium. Two applications are presented: the stochastic growth model of Brock and Mirman (1971) modified to allow distortionary taxation, and a model of inflation and capital accumulation based on Stockman (1981). The computational speed and accuracy of this approach suggests that it may be a feasible method for studying suboptimal economies with large state spaces.

The data and press commentaries studied in this paper call for a reinterpretation of the French inflationary crisis and its stabilization in 1926. In contrast with T. J. Sargent's (1984) interpretation, there is evidence that the budgetary situation was well in hand and that only fear of a capital levy made the public unwilling to buy government bonds. As a result, the government had to repay the bonds coming to maturity with monetary financing. Only when Poincare introduced a bill to shift the tax burden off bondholders did the demand for government bonds recover and inflation stop.

This paper considers the relationship between total private factor productivity and stock and flow government expenditure variables. The empirical results indicate that (i) the nonmilitary public capital stock is dramatically more important in determining productivity than is either the flow of nonmilitary or military spending, (ii) military capital is not productive, and (iii) the public stock of structures--especially a "core" infrastructure of streets, highways, sewers, and water systems--has more explanatory power for productivity than does the stock of equipment. The paper also suggests an important role for the net public capital stock in the "productivity slowdown" of the last fifteen years.

Technology change is modeled as the result of decisions of individuals and groups of individuals to adopt more advanced technologies. The structure is calibrated to the U.S. and postwar Japan growth experiences. Using this calibrated structure we explore how large the disparity in the effective tax rates on the returns to adopting technologies must be to account for the huge observed disparity in per capita income across countries. We find that this disparity is not implausibly large.