Debts and deficits with fragmented fiscal policymaking

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Velasco, A
• 署名单位: New York University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(99)00054-7
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 105-125
• 关键词: fiscal deficits; debt; tragedy of the commons; dynamic games

摘要

This paper develops a political-economic model of fiscal policy - one in which government resources are a 'common property' out of which interest groups can finance expenditures on their preferred items. This setup has striking macroeconomic implications. Transfers are higher than a benevolent planner would choose them to be; fiscal deficits emerge even when there are no reasons for intertemporal smoothing, and in the long run government debt tends to be excessively high; peculiar time profiles for transfers can emerge, with high net transfers early on giving rise to high taxes later on. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.