The fifth volume of the Journal of Government and Economics (JGE) was released in spring 2022, with articles exploring a variety of topics in the field. Nobel laureate Edmund Phelps weighs the Keynesian view and neoclassical view on public debt. Assaf Razin and Alexander Schwemmer explore how welfare state policy, migration quotas, social benefit provision, labor income taxation, and capital income taxation are driven by population ageing. Giacomo Corneo analyzes the consequences of a debt-financed sovereign wealth fund that mainly invests in the world stock market and rebates its net returns to the citizenry through a social dividend. Justin Yifu Lin, Zirong Yang, Yingting Li, and Yilin Zhang investigate the root cause of large gaps in MSME financing. Finally, Vincent Geloso and Michael Makovi test whether the post office can be generalized as a proxy for state capacity and the productive state's contribution to development. As always, all articles are open access and can be found through the links below.

Public Debt: My Dissent from 'Keynesian' Theories

Edmund Phelps

Ageing and Welfare State Policy: A Macroeconomic Perspective

Assaf Razin, Alexander Schwemmer

Progressive sovereign wealth funds

Giacomo Corneo

Development strategy and the MSMEs finance gap

Justin Yifu Lin, Zirong Yang, Yingting Li, Yilin Zhang

State capacity and the post office: Evidence from nineteenth century Quebec

Vincent Geloso, Michael Makovi