财政政策的供给效应与经济发展

本文分析了发展中国家公共投资对私人资本积累的动态响应。针对公共资本的拥挤性特征 ,同时考虑财政投资可能引起的风险。在不考虑公共投资风险的分权经济中 ,由于公共资本和私人资本都处于短缺状态 ,企业争夺拥挤性公共资本而扩张私人资本的投资行为虽然使经济超常增长 ,但是存在过度投资和过度拥挤。在集中优化模型中 ,如果考虑到公共投资的风险 ,政府通过税收方式弥补公共投资风险 ,同时将企业投资产生的拥挤效应内部化 ,就能消除企业的过度投资和过度拥挤现象 ,使经济保持合理持续的增长。对中国这样的发展中国家 ,需要重视财政的供给效应 ,在经济起飞初期保证一定数量的政府资本性支出是必要的 ,但随着经济的不断发展和政府资本性支出累积的风险增加 ,财政转型十分必要。     

Present bias and the inefficiency of the centralized economy: The role of the elasticity of intertemporal substitution

We analyze an endogenous growth model considering agents with an isoelastic utility. Preferences are characterized by a utility affected by a negative externality, and a level of impatience which decays with the time distance from the present. Agents who cannot commit the actions of their future selves, play a game against them. The stationary equilibrium of this game defines a balanced growth path with a slower growth when played by subsequent central planners than when played by decision makers in the market economy. First, we prove that the fast growing market economy implies higher welfare if the negative externality is small, while the centralized economy is welfare improving above a given threshold for the externality (obtained for a specific family of non-constant discount functions). Secondly, we observe that this threshold increases with the elasticity of intertemporal substitution in consumption. Therefore, the greater this elasticity the more likely it is that the externality lies below this threshold, where policy interventions would not be adequate. Finally, as one would expect, the range of values of the externality for which the market equilibrium provides higher welfare widens the more different from constant discounting time preferences are, due either to a wider range of variation for the instantaneous discount rates or because these decay more slowly.     

Polluting Non-Renewable Resources and Growth

In an endogenous growth model with human capital accumulation, we introduce non-renewable resources which cause flow pollution problems. In this set-up the negative external effect of pollution on productivity does not cause any distortions in the economy: The market economy will achieve the optimal extraction and growth rates. Consequently, emission taxes are unnecessary and, when introduced, will have no effect on the economy. The more important is the negative pollution externality, the larger will be the optimal long-run growth rate (which may be either positive or negative). In the case of a positive human capital externality, consumption in the market economy may approach zero in the long run, although positive consumption growth is socially optimal. Growth-enhancing policies do not necessarily cause a larger drain in the resource stock.     

Competitive equilibria with limited enforcement

We show how to decentralize constrained efficient allocations that arise from enforcement constraints between sovereign nations. In a pure exchange economy these allocations can be decentralized with private agents acting competitively and taking as given government default decisions on foreign debt. In an economy with capital these allocations can be decentralized if the government can tax capital income as well as default on foreign debt. The tax on capital income is needed to make private agents internalize a subtle externality. The decisions of the government can arise as an equilibrium of a dynamic game between governments.     

Public external debt,informality and production efficiency in developing countries

This paper proposes an alternative approach to investigate the non-linear effect of external debt on growth. In the theoretical part, we develop an endogenous growth model with formal and informal sectors to analyse the effect of the public external debt on the production efficiency. We show that an increase of the public external debt share increases the production efficiency through a positive externality effect. However, it generates an opposite effect via the reduction of the formal sector’s size in favour of a less efficient informal sector. The resultant effect becomes negative beyond an optimal level. Besides, we show that a large stock of public external debt reduces the production efficiency when it leads to a tight fiscal policy which reduces the formal sector size. Empirically, using a stochastic frontier technique with unobserved heterogeneity, for a panel of 27 developing countries for the period of 1970–2005, we confirm that the turning point associated to the effect of the share external public debt is apparent at 84%.     

Public debt and welfare in a quantitative Schumpeterian growth model with incomplete markets

This paper quantifies the welfare effects of counterfactual public debt policies using an endogenous growth model with incomplete markets. The economy features public debt, Schumpeterian growth, infinitely-lived agents, uninsurable income risk, and discount factor heterogeneity. Two versions of the model are specified, one with households holding equity in the group of innovating firms. The model is calibrated to the U.S. economy to match the degree of wealth inequality, the share of R&D expenditure in GDP, the firms’ exit rate, the average growth rate, and other standard long-run targets. When comparing balanced growth paths, I find large welfare gains in equilibria characterized by governments accumulating public wealth. The result is robust to the mechanism used to generate a highly concentrated wealth (i.e., preference heterogeneity or “superstar” income shocks). Welfare effects decompositions show that level effects and growth effects reinforce each other. The responses of both the intermediate goods and their market conditions are key in explaining the large level effects. The version of the model without equity is computationally easier to solve, allowing to consider transitional dynamics. Taking into account the dynamic adjustment to the new long-run equilibrium, I show that the transitional welfare costs are not large enough to change the sign of the welfare effects stemming from a change in public debt. I find that eliminating public debt would lead to a 0.8% increase in welfare, while moving to a debt/GDP ratio of 100% would entail a welfare loss of 0.5%. A decomposition analysis shows that growth accounts for approximately 50% of the overall welfare effects.     

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.     

Disutility of pollution and endogenous growth

Endogenous growth is generally built on a positive externality hypothesis which is the opposite of a negative externality caused by pollution. We study a linear technology with simple assumption: an aggregate capital stock which represents a learning by doing effect and a pollution flow proportional to production. In this framework, we analyse the precise effects on growth of the disutility of pollution and its interaction with the utility of consumption in an economy without abatement technology. The decentralized equilibrium always leads to unlimited growth, but optimal growth is often limited (the negative effect of pollution dominating the positive effect of learning by doing). In this case, the optimal policy which leads the decentralized economy to follow the optimal growth path is to tax capital; in contrast with the optimal subsidy policy in an economy without pollution. When an abatement technology is introduced, the optimal solution can lead the economy to unlimited growth, whatever the form of the utility function.     

干中学、过度投资和R&D对人力资本积累的“侵蚀效应”

R&D的过度投资对人力资本积累具有"侵蚀效应"。本文提出了一个同时内生化技术进步和人力资本积累的经济增长模型,强调了R&D过程中的两种特征,即R&D过程需要人力资本投入和新技术的研发通过干中学获得,并就R&D对人力资本积累的"侵蚀效应"所造成的负外部性进行了分析。通过比较分散经济均衡和集中经济均衡,本文得出结论:垄断加价及其引致的物质资本和人力资本的过度投资与"侵蚀效应"相互交错、共同作用,会在一定程度上降低人力资本的积累率和经济增长率。     

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).     

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.     

Macrodynamics of debt regimes, financial instability and growth

This paper develops a post-Keynesian dynamic model of capacityutilisation and growth, in which the supply of credit-moneyis endogenous and firms' debt position—and thus the financialfragility of the economy à la Hyman Minsky—is explicitlymodelled. The interest rate is set by banks as a markup overa base rate exogenously determined by the monetary authority.The banking markup varies with changes in capacity utilisation,while the debt ratio varies with changes in the rates of interest,capital accumulation and growth. Regarding dynamics, it is shownthe possibility of relating the stability properties of a systemwith the interest rate and the debt ratio as state variablesto the prevailing Minskyan regime—hedge, speculative orPonzi.     

Foreign aid,external debt and governance

This paper investigates the impact of foreign aid, external debt and governance on the economic growth by extending the Ramsey–Cass–Koopman's growth model in an open economy framework. Steady-state and short run analysis shows that external debt and foreign aid do not affect the growth rate of consumption but have level impact on consumption. Foreign aid and governance encourage the economic growth but external debt creates a burden on the economy. Both investment and saving are independent of external debt and thus the current account surplus. Foreign aid does not affect investment directly but it has a direct positive impact on the savings in the economy. Therefore, it is argued that improvements in the quality of governance will stimulate the output and consumption rapidly and it acts like a catalyst.     

FISCAL SUSTAINABILITY OF JAPAN: A DYNAMIC STOCHASTIC GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM APPROACH

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the fiscal sustainability of Japan by applying a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to the Japanese economy. By introducing intermediation costs into the model, we succeed in explaining the observed relationship between the interest and GDP growth rates, which is crucial in testing for sustainability. When the projected real growth rate is 2.5%, the average real interest rate becomes 2.57%, and the debt‐to‐GDP ratio gradually increases stochastically so that government debt is not sustainable. To recover sustainability, the primary surplus must be 0.2% of GDP.     

Does Improved Environmental Policy Enhance Economic Growth?

The environmental impacts on an economy is studied over time using endogenous growth theory. Externalities from the environment on production are central in the analysis, and we examine whether an optimal path realizes more rapid economic growth. The paper focuses mainly on developing countries, where production is largely influenced by the environmental quality. The result of the analysis indicates that the economic growth rate may not depend on the internalization of the environmental externality, but rather on the internalization of the human capital externality. The level of economic activity, however, generally seems to depend on the internalization of both externalities.     

REAL EXCHANGE RATE,MERCANTILISM AND THE LEARNING BY DOING EXTERNALITY

This paper examines the degree to which the learning by doing (LBD) externality calls for an undervalued exchange rate. We obtain mixed results. For an economy where the LBD externality operates in the traded sector, real exchange rate undervaluation may be used to internalize this externality, if the LBD calls for subsidizing employment in the traded sector. If the LBD externality is embodied in aggregate investment, the optimal policy calls for subsidizing the cost of capital in the traded sector, and there is no room for undervalued exchange rate policy.     

Union objectives and indexation externalities in a monopolistically competitive economy

This paper extends the literature on indexation externalities by analyzing equilibrium and efficient indexation in a unionized economy characterized by a monopolistically competitive goods market. The assumption that union objectives relate to both employment and the real wage implies that union indexation decisions are associated with a negative externality and, as a consequence, the equilibrium degree of indexation is inefficiently high. This feature is characteristic of both passive and activist policy environments.     

The long-term consequences of external debt: Revisiting the evidence and inspecting the mechanism using panel VARs

We estimate a panel vector autoregression model to examine the relationship between external debt and economic growth. We use a large dataset based on 123 countries, classified according to income levels over the period 1990–2015. While total external debt appears to have a negative effect on growth rate overall, it is positively associated with income growth in the lower- and upper-middle income countries. Further disaggregating external debt into its components reveals that public external debt negatively affects economic growth across all income categories of countries, whereas the impact of private external debt is not statistically significant. We do not detect a common threshold level in the relationship between public debt and economic growth across countries. Savings and investment are the primary channels through which external debt impacts economic growth. These results are robust to various model specifications, additional controls, and identifying restrictions.     

Government Ponzi games and the sustainability of public deficits under uncertainty

This paper reconsiders the conditions under which a government may engage in debt roll-over schemes by financing interest payments through the issue of new debt. Output growth rates in excess of interest rates on government debt have traditionally been considered grounds for sustaining such schemes. A government may avoid debt repayment, or even run a primary deficit forever, and yet maintain a bounded debt-to-income ratio. Recent research has pointed at the stronger constraints placed on government behaviour by uncertain output growth. We show that this is not the case when an alternative criterion for solvency is used, namely that the debt-to-income ratio converges almost surely in the long run. In this case, the government is solvent when the asymptotic growth rate of the economy exceeds the asymptotic interest rate on debt, a natural extension of a familiar criterion in a deterministic environment.Convergence to the long-run outcome may, however, be a slow process. For realistic parameter values, long-run-stable fiscal plans may resemble unsustainable plans over long horizons. This circumstance may explain the observed poor performance of debt ratios as indicators of fiscal sustainability.     

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。