Financial development,institutional quality and maximizing-growth trade-off in government finance

This paper studies monetary and fiscal policies in an endogenous growth model with transaction costs. We show that the relation between long-run economic growth and both monetary and fiscal policies is subject to threshold effects, a result that gives account of a number of recent empirical findings. Furthermore, the model shows that, to finance public expenditures, growth-maximizing governments must choose relatively high seigniorage (respectively income taxation), if “institutional quality” and “financial development” indicators are low (respectively high). Thus, our model may explain why some governments resort to seigniorage and inflationary finance, and others rather resort to high tax rates, as a result of growth-maximizing strategies in different structural environments (notably concerning institutional and financial development contexts). In addition, the model allows examining how the optimal mix of government finance changes in response to different public debt contexts. A short empirical section confirms our theoretical results.     

Optimal public policy with endogenous mortality

We analyze the welfare‐maximizing policy mix between explicit and implicit taxation, where the probability of survival of the young agents depends upon the share of government expenditure on health, education and infrastructure. We show that increases in the survival probability lead to an increase in the reliance on seigniorage as a welfare maximizing outcome. However, the seigniorage tax base must be large enough for the benevolent planner to use the inflation tax.     

ELIMINATING THE INFLATIONARY FINANCE TRAP IN A POLITICALLY UNSTABLE COUNTRY: DOMESTIC POLITICS VS. INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE

This paper presents an intertemporal political economy model of public finance relevant for developing and transition countries where there is inherent political instability. As in Cukierman et al. (1992) , it is shown that political instability causes myopic behaviour by a rational government resulting in high levels of revenue from seigniorage. It is then argued that inflationary finance also increases barter and currency substitution, but if the government tries to suppress them, seigniorage taxation rises even more. Only international financial pressure can help eliminate the inflationary finance trap, but becomes less effective as the instability increases.     

The political economy of seigniorage

While most economists agree that seigniorage is one way governments finance deficits, there is less agreement about the political, institutional and economic reasons for relying on it. This paper investigates the main political and institutional determinants of seigniorage using panel data on about 100 countries, for the period 1960–1999. Estimates show that greater political instability leads to higher seigniorage, especially in developing, less democratic and socially-polarized countries, with high inflation, low access to domestic and external debt financing and with higher turnover of central bank presidents. One important policy implication of this study is the need to develop institutions conducive to greater political stability as a means to reduce the reliance on seigniorage financing of public deficits.     

Government Bond Seigniorage

Recent studies have indicated that government bonds are an imperfect substitute for money in providing transaction services. Based on these studies, this article develops a theoretical framework showing that, as with money seigniorage, the government can gain an interest benefit from issuing government bonds. The article terms this interest benefit as ‘government bond seigniorage’. Further, the article estimates government bond seigniorage in comparison with money seigniorage for five countries (Australia, Canada, France, Italy and the United States) during the period 1959–2001. It is found that government bond seigniorage accounts for a larger percentage of Gross Domestic Product than money seigniorage, but also experiences greater fluctuations for all sample countries.     

Political instablility and seigniorage: An inseparable couple — or a threesome with debt?

In the literature, political instability is shown to raise seigniorage and/or debt, but there is no debt‐seigniorage trade‐off. However, what happens when the IMF gets involved? Based on a political economy model of intertemporal public finance this paper presents qualitatively new and robust results. First, political instability causes myopic government behaviour and produces more debt, not more seigniorage. Second, IMF policies requiring debtor countries to achieve both monetary and fiscal stability at the same time are ineffective. Third and surprisingly at first sight, debt conditionality aiming at monetary stability is particularly effective in heterogeneous societies with unstable governments.     

Cash-in-advance constraint,optimal monetary policy,and human capital accumulation

This paper investigates optimal monetary policy in an overlapping-generations model with endogenous growth fueled by the accumulation of human capital and under a cash-in-advance constraint. We consider the case where the government finances public education fully by seigniorage. Three main results are obtained. First, there exists an optimal money growth rate that maximizes the economic growth rate along the steady growth path. Second, on this path, the Laffer curve of seigniorage takes the maximum. Finally, the money growth rate for maximizing seigniorage along the steady growth path, which also leads to maximization of the economic growth rate, is lower than that for maximizing seigniorage in the present period.     

铸币税:基于不同视角的理解

本文讨论了不同货币体系下铸币税对政府和中央银行的含义,同时也讨论了铸币税对收入再分配和政府宏观经济政策的意义。本文着重指出,铸币税收入与通货膨胀税是存在差异的。在对我国中央银行资产负债表进行分析的基础上,本文还估算了2003年我国政府从货币发行中获得的铸币税收入的规模。     

Government financing in an endogenous growth model with financial market restrictions

Summary. In this paper, we develop an endogenous growth model with market regulations on explicitly modeled financial intermediaries to examine the effects of alternative government financing schemes on growth, inflation, and welfare. In the presence of binding regulation, there is always a unique equilibrium. We perform four alternative policy experiments; a change in the seigniorage tax rate, a change in the seigniorage tax base, a change in the income tax and a change in the fiscal-monetary policy mix. We find that in the presence of binding legal reserve requirements, a marginal increase in government spending need not result in a reduction in the rate of economic growth if it is financed with an increase in the seigniorage tax rate. Raising the seigniorage tax base by means of an increase in the reserve requirement retards growth and it has an ambiguous effect on inflation. An increase in income tax financed government spending also suppresses growth and raises inflation although not to the extent that the required seigniorage tax rate alternative would. Switching from seigniorage to income taxation as a source of government finance is growth reducing but deflationary. From a welfare perspective, the least distortionary way of financing an increase in the government spending requirements is by means of a marginal increase in the seigniorage tax rate. Under the specification of logarithmic preferences, the optimal tax structure is indeterminate. Received: March 20, 2000; revised version: June 26, 2001     

Seigniorage and public good in an OLG model with cash-in-advance constraints

This paper is a contribution to the theory of the optimal monetary policy in overlapping generations models with a cash-in-advance constraint applying on old age consumption purchases. We are particularly interested in the study of seigniorage when the latter is used to finance public goods valued by consumers. Assuming that a public good enters the utility function and the existence of cash-in-advance constraints, we find a Laffer curve of seigniorage at steady-state. We also analyze the dynamic optimal monetary policy when the government maximizes an intertemporal social welfare function and can only resort to seigniorage to finance the purchases of the public good. We show that the optimal rate of money growth may be strictly higher than the one which maximizes steady-state seigniorage: the optimal amount of seigniorage may lie on the decreasing part of the Laffer curve of seigniorage. We finally suppose that the government can use lump-sum taxes in addition to seigniorage. Then, the Friedman rule prevails and public expenditures are only financed through lump-sum taxes.     

Decentralized Policymaking in a Long‐run Growth Model with Seigniorage and Taxes

The paper introduces decentralized policymaking into a game‐theoretic model with output growth through capital accumulation, and in which the determination of taxes, seigniorage and the long‐run growth rate of the economy reflects the strategic interactions between the government, the central bank and the private sector. The paper investigates, among other things, the impact on the long‐run growth rate of a higher degree of inflation aversion of the central bank and a higher degree of inefficiency in the tax system.     

Tax collection lags and the revenue-maximising inflation

When tax payments take place with a considerable time lag, inflation erodes part of their real value, and this loss may be comparable or even surpass the well-known gains from seigniorage. The paper finds that for the economy of Greece, a reduction of inflation will actually raise the total sum of tax collection and seigniorage, thus easing and not aggravating the debt-accumulation process.     

The euro for the Balkans?

This paper makes the case for full euroization of the Balkans. It argues that the full adoption of the new currency, including the use of euro notes and coins, would bring important benefits for the countries in south east Europe. The key benefit of euroization would be the opportunity it would provide to radically reform and open the financial system, thus changing the equilibrium of the domestic political economy (by eliminating political influence over credit allocation). It also argues that the loss of seigniorage would be minor, but that there is no reason why the rich EU should benefit from this. Compensation for the loss of seigniorage would be technically easy to implement. Finally, the paper presents a small model that demonstrates how a devaluation might actually impair the debt‐servicing capacity of the government. This implies that the exchange rate cannot easily absorb shocks to the interest rate to be paid on external debt, or to the availability of capital for emerging markets in general. A deterioration in the availability of external capital might thus trigger extremely large exchange rate adjustments, which in turn can disrupt the domestic financial system. This should be an important consideration for such a highly indebted region. JEL classification: F33, F32.     

权利配置、契约完备、政府约束视角下的中国农村经济组织化发展研究

中国农村以家庭承包经营制度为核心的小农经济在迅速发展的市场经济中竞争能力日渐不足,组织化发展是促进农村经济增长和提高农民收入的一条可行之路。诸多研究表明,从制度经济学的角度来看,经济的组织化发展是以权利配置、契约完备和政府约束的组织化为核心。以此为起点,本文首先探究了制度组织化提高供求竞争性均衡的机理,之后深入研究了中国农村经济中农地流转、农民合作、农产品流通、农业生产和农村金融服务五个组成部分中权利配置、契约完备和政府约束三个方面的组织化水平及其与农村经济供求均衡的适应度,最后给出了中国农村经济组织化发展的对策建议。     

Corruption, inflation and growth

We present a model in which the embezzlement of tax revenues by public officials leads the government to rely more on seigniorage to finance its expenditures. This raises inflation which depresses investment and growth via a cash-in-advance constraint.     

一个关于转型经济中最优所有权安排的理论

为什么是以乡镇企业为代表的集体所有制经济,而不是私有或与国有经济在过去20年中成为中国经济迅速增长的主要贡献因素?在转型经济中,大规模的民营化应该在什么样的时机与条件下实施?该文提供了一个在市场与政府制度环境不完善情况下(特别是转型经济中)决定最优所有权安排的理论模型.这一理论对预测如何从指令性经济向市场经济转型的发生过程提供了一种思路.文中论证了不同的经济制度环境将会给出不同的最优所有权安排(民有、集体或国家所有权安排).文章表明只有当经济制度环境得到适当改变才能有效地变换产权所有制安排形式.     

开放经济的稳定性和经济自由化的次序

本文从金融领域和实体经济两个领域分析 ,在不同的制度安排下 ,外部冲击将对一国经济的稳定性产生怎样的影响以及这些影响的传导机制。主要结论有二 :第一 ,与政府干预的经济相比 ,全面自由化的经济具有最强的稳定性 ;第二 ,从保持经济体制转换过程中的稳定性角度看 ,自由化的最优先后次序应当是 :实体经济自由化、国内金融自由化、实行浮动汇率制和资本项目开放。     

Overconfidence,income-ability gap,and preferences for income equality

Overconfident people who do not earn what they think they can may attribute this negative gap to the unfairness of the economy and thereby favor reducing income inequality when they realize their negative income-ability gap. To test this theory, we conducted an online survey experiment in the US in which we assigned the treatment emphasizing each respondent’s self-perception of the income-ability gap randomly. The results indicate that realizing this negative income-ability gap lowers respondents’ perception of the economy being meritocratic and fair. However, it did not translate into the higher support for reducing income inequality or the support for the government intervention. In addition, we examined the potential heterogeneity depending on political ideologies and political trust levels.     

Eco-Dumping, Capital Mobility, and International Trade

A small open economy’s optimal environmental policy is studied in a model with international capital mobility and local pollution. The country produces traded as well as non-traded goods. Is it in the country’s interest to engage in ecological dumping by choosing generous pollution allowances for the traded-good sector? The answer depends decisively on the policy regime in use. Dumping is not optimal if the country ensures that the implicit rent on pollution is completely appropriated within the country. However, if the implicit factor reward on pollution leaves the country because it accrues to (foreign) owners of mobile capital, the local welfare maximizing government tends to discriminate against the traded-good sector, the opposite of ecological dumping.     

Seigniorage and Japanese fiscal sustainability: Simulation analysis using an overlapping generations model

This study examines two tax policies for achieving fiscal sustainability in Japan: (i) an increase in consumption tax and (ii) consumption tax hike combined with inflation. To evaluate these policies from both fiscal and welfare perspectives, I develop a multi-period overlapping generations model with money. The results reveal that, compared to the first policy, the second policy can substantially delay the timing of and curb the increase in consumption tax through seigniorage revenue. This suggests seigniorage could be a useful tool for the Japanese government in resolving its fiscal problems. In addition, in an aging Japan, the second policy can enhance future generations’ utility. Because inflation reduces money holdings and utility of the elderly, policies that cause inflation in the present but reduce it in the future improve the utility of future generations. From a social welfare viewpoint, such policies are desirable in a government that has foresight.