Public capital,sustainable debt and endogenous growth

We analyze an endogenous growth model with public capital and public debt where we posit that the primary surplus of the government is a positive function of cumulated past debt with an exponentially declining weight put on debt further back in time. We consider two scenarios: first, we study the model assuming that the government runs a balanced budget and, then, we compare the outcome to that of the model with permanent deficits. We analyze growth effects of the two scenarios and we study how fiscal policy of the government affects the dynamics of the model economy. It is demonstrated that the balanced growth rate is higher when cumulated past public debt is smaller. Further, we show that the debt policy of the government crucially determines the dynamics of the model economy and that endogenous growth cycles can arise.     

财政政策、货币政策与国外经济援助

本文通过把国外经济援助分成直接对私人的经济援助和直接对政府的经济援助来讨论这两类经济援助对政府财政政策和货币政策的影响。我们发现对私人的经济援助的增加可以使得私人消费水平和政府公共消费水平增加 ,但是它也导致政府收入税税率和通货膨胀率的提高 ;另一方面 ,对政府的经济援助增加可以使得均衡时的私人资本存量、私人消费水平和政府公共消费水平增加 ,同时可以使得均衡时的收入税税率和通货膨胀率下降。     

Optimal fiscal policy in the neoclassical growth model revisited

This paper studies optimal taxation in a version of the neoclassical growth model in which investment becomes productive within the period, thereby making the supply of capital elastic in the short run. Because taxing capital is distortionary in the short run, the government׳s ability/desire to raise revenues through capital income taxation in the initial period or when the economy is hit with a bad shock is greatly curtailed. Our timing assumption also leads to a tractable Ramsey problem without state-contingent debt, which can give rise to debt-financed budget deficits during recessions.     

公共资本投资、内生经济增长与合理政府债务规模*

本文基于一个具有内生增长机制的三部门世代交叠模型,讨论了政府举债为公共投资进行融资时经济的长期均衡;同时,通过数值模拟方法考察了我国的均衡政府债务规模及其影响因素。结果表明：在特定条件下,经济系统存在一个正的均衡政府债务-产出比重,该债务比重水平明显受到公共投资—产出比重、公共投资的债务融资比重、民间资本产出弹性等参数的影响。但是,均衡政府债务比重并不是无限上升的,当上述参数超过特定临界值时,经济系统无法达到均衡,政府债务-产出之比将持续上升,财政将不可持续。另外,当民间资本产出弹性较低时,较高的均衡政府债务比重可能导致经济运行动态无效率。数值模拟结果还显示,基于不同的假设情形,我国的均衡政府债务-产出比重均在不同程度上高于当前实际的政府债务规模,这为我国在未来期间实施扩张性财政政策提供了有利的依据。     

China's Growing Government Debt in a Computable Overlapping Generations Model

This paper simulates the effects of China's growing government debt in a computable equilibrium model of overlapping generations. Our model assumes that the government increases debt to finance its spending in the short run, and then increases taxes or cuts spending to keep the debt–GDP ratio constant. The spending‐driven government debt increases public capital and output in the short run, but decreases private investment, total capital stock, output, and net exports in the long run, and makes the future generations worse off. Among various means of debt control, a decrease in government spending seems to be the least harmful to private investment, capital stock, and output while an increase in capital taxation is most detrimental.     

Inflation and the Impact of Budgets

This article focuses on the adjustment of budget figures for the effect of inflation on the value of government debt. It asks whether such adjustment improves their performance as a measure of 'fiscal impact'. If inflation significantly influences the impact of budgets on the real economy, policy-makers may make inappropriate fiscal policy decisions if they are guided by unadjusted budget figures. The article argues that if agents perceive holdings of government debt as part of their wealth, changes in the real value of debt will have an effect on consumption behaviour. Therefore to assess the impact of fiscal policy on consumption it may be necessary to adjust budget figures so that they accurately indicate changes in the real value of debt held by the private sector. This article adjusts a series of structural public sector borrowing requirements (PSBR) for the effect of inflation on the real value of government debt held by the private sector. An empirical analysis concludes that the inflation-adjusted budget series provides a superior measure of fiscal impact on consumption, and hence the real economy.     

PRODUCTIVE GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURE IN MONETARY BUSINESS CYCLE MODELS

This paper assesses the transmission of fiscal policy shocks in a New Keynesian framework where government expenditures contribute to aggregate production. It is shown that even if the impact of government expenditures on production is small, this assumption helps to reconcile the models' predictions about fiscal policy effects with recent empirical evidence. In particular, it is shown that government expenditures can lead to a rise in private consumption, real wages, and employment if the government share is not too large and public finance does not solely rely on distortionary taxation. When government expenditures are partially financed by public debt, unit labor costs fall in response to a fiscal expansion, such that inflation tends to decline. Households are willing to raise consumption if monetary policy is active, i.e. ensures that the real interest rate rises with inflation. Otherwise, private consumption can also be crowded out, as in the conventional case where government expenditures are not productive.     

我国现阶段财政政策若干问题的思考

１９９８ 年下半年以后, 中央把宏观调控的重点, 放在实施积极的财政政策上。即运用适当规模的财政赤字和向商业银行增发国债, 加大财政支出力度, 作为启动国民经济增长的重要手段。但是, 如果没有消费需求的支持和货币政策的配套, 就不可能把行政启动转变为市场启动, 这种投资增长和经济回升, 是不会持久的。这就要求政府的宏观调控的着眼点, 要放在鼓励和促进消费需求增长上, 使投资和消费双向启动, 才能带动国民经济增长的良性循环。     

Fiscal financing and the efficacy of fiscal policy in Korea: An empirical assessment with comparison to the U.S. evidence

This paper aims to assess the empirical implications of fiscal financing in Korea and study how they differ from those of the U.S. We estimate two versions of the dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model—a small open economy (SOE) model for Korea and its closed economy counterpart for the U.S.—in which the former nests the latter as a special case. The fiscal policy specification posits that government spending, lump-sum transfers, and distortionary taxation on labor income, capital income and consumption expenditures respond to the level of government debt and the state of economic activity. Analysis of the data from 2000 to 2015 shows that distortionary capital taxes play a critical role in stabilizing government debt in the U.S., whereas non-distorting fiscal instruments are the primary means of fiscal adjustment in Korea. Regarding the magnitude of debt-financed fiscal stimuli, the substantial trade openness of Korea is significant in that it produces relatively smaller government spending and transfer multipliers compared to the U.S.     

HYPERBOLIC DISCOUNTING,PUBLIC DEBT AND BALANCED BUDGET RULES

This paper considers a government that chooses its tax and borrowing policy in order to minimize the present value of the excess burden caused by taxation. In doing so, the government uses hyperbolic discounting. It turns out that public deficits are positive even if public expenditures are constant over time. With cyclical expenditures, the government chooses an asymmetric debt policy, i.e., in bad times it borrows more than it repays in good times. In contrast to tax smoothing and political economy theories of public debt, the welfare effects of a balanced budget rule are ambiguous.     

Fiscal policy,government debt,and economic growth in the Kaleckian model of growth and distribution

This article presents the Kaleckian model of growth and distribution that sets a budget deficit ratio as an indicator of fiscal policy and examines the short- and long-run effects of an increase in budget deficits and a rise in income tax rates on the economy. The key short-run outcomes are as follows. First, expanded budget deficits have a positive effect on the rate of capacity utilization. Second, the tax rate for wage income does not affect the rate of capacity utilization, whereas the tax rate for capital income has a favorable impact on it. This result implies that raising the tax rate for capital income can be an important policy instrument for stimulating the economy. Third, we find that the economy exhibits a wage-led aggregate demand in the short run. The main long-run results are as follows. First, the effect of expanded budget deficits on the growth rate is ambiguous, since a higher debt burden negatively influences the rate of capacity utilization and hence economic growth, despite the increase in demand caused by government borrowing. A higher budget deficit ratio thus raises the growth rate only if a certain condition is satisfied. Second, the tax rate for capital income has a positive impact on the growth rate. Third, the economy shows a wage-led growth in the long run.     

The trade-off between public debt reduction and automatic stabilisation

This paper addresses the basic tradeoff between the stabilisation properties of budgets and the sustainability of long run fiscal positions. The modeling framework consists of a simple non-monetary endowment economy with overlapping generations, extended to account for stochastic endowments and borrowing constrained households. A benign government chooses the optimal degree of responsiveness of net taxes to individual incomes and an optimal measure of long-run public debt in order to smooth households' consumption across states of nature. In the presence of a deficit constraint for the government, the results point to the desire for lower debt levels than those currently prevailing in European Union countries in order to enable a more effective hedging of personal income uncertainty by means of more active automatic fiscal stabilisers. The optimal degree of automatic stabilisation and debt reduction is conditional on the characteristics of economic cycles.     

Public investment,national debt,and economic growth: The role of debt finance under dynamic inefficiency

Public investment is a central issue in the dynamic analyses of fiscal policy and economic growth. Debt financing for public investment and its effects have recently received great attention because interest rates have been low, almost invariably remaining below economic growth rates. This paper presents examination of the effects of debt-financed public investment subject to a simple fiscal rule in an overlapping generations model with public capital. This topic includes capital budgeting and the debt–deficit criterion of the Maastricht treaty. We show herein that debt financing for public investment enhances economic growth if an economy is dynamically inefficient and if public capital has a sufficiently large productivity effect. Moreover, it reduces economic growth rates in a dynamically efficient economy. Debt and growth can have a monotonic or non-monotonic relation, depending on the steady-state interest rate, growth rate, and productivity effect of public investment. The findings indicate that debt–growth relations match with controversial empirical evidence. Furthermore, existing generations choose perfect debt finance if dynamic inefficiency exists. In contrast, a balanced budget is preferred in a dynamically efficient economy with low productivity effects of public capital. However, an economy with high productivity effects of public capital might cho ose debt financing. This paper contributes to the elucidation of currently emphasized issues of public investment.     

Capitalists,workers, and the burden of debt

Abstract

This paper analyzes the burden of debt in a growth model that combines overlapping generations of workers who save for life-cycle reasons and dynastic agents who save for bequest reasons (‘capitalists’). Ricardian Equivalence prevails, but capitalists regard the debt serviced out of taxes on workers as net wealth. In the long run, the Cambridge Theorem holds: the relationship between the rate of profit and rate of growth is determined by the capitalist saving function, independently of worker or government saving. Two alternative closures are considered. Under exogenous growth constrained by a fully employed labor force, debt and deficits result in temporary effects on the distribution of income but permanent effects on the distribution of wealth. Under endogenous growth constrained by a fully utilized capital stock, debt and deficits result in temporary effects on the growth rates of the components of wealth and permanent effects on the level and distribution of capital.     

The general equilibrium effects of fiscal policy: Estimates for the Euro area

This paper describes a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model featuring a fraction of non-Ricardian agents in order to estimate the effects of fiscal policy in the Euro area. The model takes into account distortionary taxation on labor and capital income and on consumption, while expenditures are broken down into purchases of goods and services, compensation of public employees and transfers to households. A newly computed quarterly data set of fiscal variables is used. Our results point to the prevalence of mild Keynesian effects of public expenditures. In particular, although innovations in fiscal policy variables tend to be rather persistent, government purchases of goods and services and compensations for public employees have small and short-lived expansionary effects on private consumption, while innovations in transfers to households show a slightly more sizeable and lasting effect. The effects are more significant on the revenue side: decreases in labor income and consumption tax rates have sizeable effects on consumption and output, while a reduction in capital income tax favors investment and output in the medium run. Finally our estimates suggest that fiscal policy variables contribute little to the cyclical variability of the main macro variables.     

Debt Policy Rules in an Open Economy

In a small open economy model of endogenous growth with public capital accumulation, we examine the effects of a debt policy rule under which the government must reduce its debt–GDP ratio if it exceeds the criterion level. To sustain public debt at a finite level, the government should adjust public spending rather than the income tax rate. The long‐run debt–GDP ratio should be kept sufficiently low to avoid equilibrium indeterminacy. Under sustainability and determinacy, a tighter (looser) debt rule brings welfare gains when the world interest rate is relatively high (low).     

寻求更有效的财政政策——中国宏观经济分析

宏观财政政策是一种公共物品 ,其有效性的标准是 ,在实现政府利益的同时 ,能够增进社会的福利。面临通货紧缩 ,政府将继续实施以财政政策为主导的扩张性宏观政策 ,在财政支出空间有限的情况下 ,就要选择能够作大投资乘数 ,提高市场效率的措施 ;同时要考虑调整税制结构 ,改变对投资征高税的税制 ,逐步变生产型增值税为收入型增值税和消费型增值税 ,并通过把内资企业税负降至外资企业的水平 ,一方面提高企业的利润预期 ,另一方面 ,消除税负不公 ,提高社会经济效率和减少资本外流 ;在运用国债政策时 ,既要重视国债的发行和使用 ,更要重视国债的交易和流通 ,推进我国金融市场的发育和功能的发挥以及促进公用事业的企业化 ,转换资源配置方式 ,从政府配置转向市场配置 ,从集中配置转向分散配置。总之 ,在体制转轨时期 ,推行一种与市场化改革相结合的财政政策 ,把短期的政策操作和长期的制度调整结合起来 ,实现政策和体制联动。     

IS IT IS OR IS IT AIN'T MY OBLIGATION? REGIONAL DEBT IN A FISCAL FEDERATION*

This article studies the repayment of regional debt in a multiregion economy with a central authority: Who pays the obligation issued by a region? With commitment, the central government will use its economy‐wide taxation power in support of its objective to smooth distortionary taxes and consumption across regions. Absent commitment, this tool of the central government may be exploited to induce it to bail out regional government deficits. We characterize the conditions under which bailouts occur and their welfare implications. In particular, we show when the gains from a federation may outweigh the welfare costs of a bailout. We use these insights to comment on actual fiscal relations in three quite different federations: the United States, the European Union, and Argentina.     

Fiscal policy reforms in general equilibrium: The case of Greece

This paper quantifies the macroeconomic and welfare implications of (i) changes in the tax-spending mix and (ii) debt consolidation policies. The setup is a neoclassical growth model augmented with a relatively rich public sector. The model is calibrated to the Greek economy. The results suggest that, if the goal of fiscal policy is to stimulate the economy and increase welfare by changing the tax mix, then it should decrease the tax rate on labour income and increase the consumption tax rate. While higher public investment spending is good for the economy, it is lower public consumption spending that is found to be expansionary. The results also suggest that both tax- and expenditure-based debt consolidation policies lead to worse economic activity in the short run, but they have strong beneficial effects in the medium and long run when the consolidation period finishes.     

Fiscal policy over the real business cycle: A positive theory

This paper explores the implications of the political economy model of Battaglini and Coate (2008) [8] for the behavior of fiscal policy over the business cycle. The model predicts that fiscal policy is counter-cyclical with debt increasing in recessions and decreasing in booms. Public spending increases in booms and decreases during recessions, while tax rates decrease during booms and increase in recessions. In both booms and recessions, fiscal policies are set so that the marginal cost of public funds obeys a submartingale. When calibrated to the US economy, the model broadly matches the empirical distribution of debt and also its negative correlation with output. However, the predictions of pro-cyclical spending and counter-cyclical taxation do not find empirical support. The calibrated model generates the same fit of the data as a benevolent government model in which the government faces an exogenous lower bound on debt. Nonetheless, the two models have very different comparative static implications.