IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2007-162.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Note on Public Debt, Tax-Exempt Bonds, and Ponzi Games

Author

Listed:
  • Berthold U. Wigger

Abstract

By issuing tax-exempt bonds, the government can incur debt and never pay back any principal or interest, even if the economy without public debt evolves on a dynamically efficient growth path. The welfare effects of such a Ponzi type borrowing scheme are mixed. The current young will unambiguously benefit.Depending on preferences and the aggregate technology, also a finite number of subsequent generations may benefit. The welfare of all generations thereafter, however, will be lower than in the economy without public debt.

Suggested Citation

  • Berthold U. Wigger, 2007. "A Note on Public Debt, Tax-Exempt Bonds, and Ponzi Games," IMF Working Papers 2007/162, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2007/162
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=21101
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chalk, Nigel A., 2000. "The sustainability of bond-financed deficits: An overlapping generations approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 293-328, April.
    2. Grossman, Gene M. & Yanagawa, Noriyuki, 1993. "Asset bubbles and endogenous growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 3-19, February.
    3. King, Ian & Ferguson, Don, 1993. "Dynamic inefficiency, endogenous growth, and Ponzi games," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 79-104, August.
    4. O'Connell, Stephen A & Zeldes, Stephen P, 1988. "Rational Ponzi Games," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 29(3), pages 431-450, August.
    5. Ball, Laurence & Elmendorf, Douglas W & Mankiw, N Gregory, 1998. "The Deficit Gamble," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(4), pages 699-720, November.
    6. Mr. John Norregaard, 1997. "The Tax Treatment of Government Bonds," IMF Working Papers 1997/025, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Oded Galor & Harl E. Ryder, 1988. "Dynamic efficiency of steady-state equilibria in an overlapping-generations model with productive capital," Working Papers 1988-26, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    8. Galor, Oded & Ryder, Harl E., 1991. "Dynamic efficiency of steady-state equilibria in an overlapping-generations model with productive capital," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 385-390, April.
    9. Tirole, Jean, 1985. "Asset Bubbles and Overlapping Generations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1499-1528, November.
    10. Berthold Wigger, 2005. "Public Debt, Human Capital Formation, and Dynamic Inefficiency," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(1), pages 47-59, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yasuoka, Masaya & Miyake, Atsushi, 2013. "Public debt, child allowances and pension benefits with endogenous fertility," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 7, pages 1-25.
    2. Mosolygó, Zsuzsa, 2011. "On the long-term trends of public debt – Implications of the government’s Ponzi game and ageing," Public Finance Quarterly, Corvinus University of Budapest, vol. 56(4), pages 446-473.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wigger, Berthold U., 2009. "A note on public debt, tax-exempt bonds, and Ponzi games," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 492-499, September.
    2. Femminis, Gianluca, 2002. "Monopolistic competition, dynamic inefficiency and asset bubbles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 985-1007, June.
    3. Kunieda, Takuma, 2008. "Asset bubbles and borrowing constraints," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 112-131, January.
    4. Stefan Josten, 2006. "Dynamic fiscal policies and unemployment in a simple endogenous growth model," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 13(6), pages 701-716, November.
    5. Berthold Wigger, 2005. "Public Debt, Human Capital Formation, and Dynamic Inefficiency," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(1), pages 47-59, January.
    6. Michau, Jean-Baptiste & Ono, Yoshiyasu & Schlegl, Matthias, 2023. "Wealth preference and rational bubbles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    7. Kunieda, Takuma & Shibata, Akihisa, 2012. "Asset bubbles, economic growth, and a self-fulfilling financial crisis: a dynamic general equilibrium model of infinitely lived heterogeneous agents," MPRA Paper 37309, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Ken‐ichi Hashimoto & Ryonghun Im & Takuma Kunieda & Akihisa Shibata, 2022. "Asset bubbles, unemployment, and financial market frictions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(4), pages 1806-1832, October.
    9. Larch, Martin, 1993. "Dynamically Inefficient Equilibria in the Auerbach-Kotlikoff Model," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 159-172.
    10. Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Gregory Mankiw, N., 1999. "Government debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1615-1669, Elsevier.
    11. Ken‐ichi Hashimoto & Ryonghun Im, 2019. "Asset bubbles, labour market frictions and R&D‐based growth," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(2), pages 822-846, May.
    12. Kizuku Takao, 2014. "Growth effect of bubbles in a non-scale endogenous growth model with in-house R&D," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 14-11, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    13. Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2011. "Theoretical Notes on Bubbles and the Current Crisis," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 59(1), pages 6-40, April.
    14. Kaiji Chen & Yi Wen, 2017. "The Great Housing Boom of China," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 9(2), pages 73-114, April.
    15. Massimo Antonini, 2005. "Public Capital, Fiscal Deficit and Growth," DEGIT Conference Papers c010_055, DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade.
    16. Alberto Martin & Jaume Ventura, 2012. "Economic Growth with Bubbles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(6), pages 3033-3058, October.
    17. Takumi Motoyama, 2019. "Sustainability of public debt under physical and human capital accumulation in an overlapping generations model," Journal of Economics, Springer, vol. 127(1), pages 19-45, June.
    18. Futagami, Koichi & Shibata, Akihisa, 1999. "Welfare effects of bubbles in an endogenous growth model," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 381-403, December.
    19. Jaume Ventura, 2002. "Bubbles and capital flows," Economics Working Papers 846, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Mar 2010.
    20. Giglio, Stefano & Severo, Tiago, 2012. "Intangible capital, relative asset shortages and bubbles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 303-317.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WP; Ponzi game; capital market;
    All these keywords.

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2007/162. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.