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Politics and efficiency of separating capital and ordinary Government budgets

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Author Info
Marco Bassetto
Thomas J. Sargent

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Abstract

We analyze the democratic politics and competitive economics of a ‘golden rule’ that separates capital and ordinary account budgets and allows a government to issue debt to finance only capital items. Many national governments followed this rule in the 18th and 19th centuries and most U.S. states do today. We study an economy with a growing population of overlapping generations of long-lived but mortal agents. Each period, majorities choose durable and nondurable public goods. In a special limiting case with demographics that make Ricardian equivalence prevail, the golden rule does nothing to promote efficiency. But when the demographics imply even moderate departures from Ricardian equivalence, imposing the golden rule substantially improves the efficiency of democratically chosen allocations of public goods. We use some examples calibrated to U.S. demographic data and find greater benefits from adopting the golden rule at the state level or with 19th century demographics than under current national demographics

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Paper provided by Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in its series Working Paper Series with number WP-05-07.

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Date of creation: 2005
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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedhwp:wp-05-07

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Keywords: Demography Budget

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  1. Roel M.W.J. Beetsma & Frederick van der Ploeg, 2007. "Partisan Public Investment and Debt: The Case for Fiscal Restrictions," Economics Working Papers ECO2007/37, European University Institute. [Downloadable!]
  2. Marco Bassetto & Vadym Lepetyuk, 2007. "Government Investment and the European Stability and Growth Pact," NBER Working Papers 13200, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Beetsma, Roel & van der Ploeg, Frederick, 2007. "The Political Economy of Public Investment," CEPR Discussion Papers 6090, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Marco Bassetto & Thomas J. Sargent, 2005. "Politics and efficiency of separating capital and ordinary Government budgets," Working Paper Series WP-05-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Martín Gonzales-Eiras & Dirk Niepelt, 2007. "Population Ageing, Government Budgets, and Productivity Growth in Politico-Economic Equilibrium," Working Papers 07.05, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Assar Lindbeck & Dirk Niepelt, 2005. "Improving the SGP: Taxes and Delegation rather than Fines," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Paul Klein & Per Krusell & José-Víctor Ríos-Rull, 2004. "Time-Consistent Public Expenditures," Levine's Bibliography 122247000000000652, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  8. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 2006. "Public-private Partnerships and Government Spending Limits," Economics Working Papers 0075, Institute for Advanced Study, School of Social Science. [Downloadable!]
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