IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lmu/muenec/13794.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unexpected Consequences of Ricardian Expectations

Author

Listed:
  • Schlicht, Ekkehart

Abstract

Economists are widely familiar with the Ricardian equivalence thesis. It maintains that, given the time-path of government spending, a change in taxation does not alter the set of feasible life-time consumption plans of the households and affects neither the demand for commodities and services nor the rate of interest, provided the households act rationally. In this note a surprising finding is established. Assuming that the agents in a standard infinite horizon growth model hold the very expectations the thesis proposes (“Ricardian expectations”), it is shown that these expectations are disappointed. This divergence from the Ricardian equivalence thesis is traced to the omission of interest payments on public debt as part of the households' disposable income. The non-equivalence is valid in a wide class of models. Further it is shown that a permanent deficit policy does not imply a violation of the government's budget constraint at any point of time in the future.

Suggested Citation

  • Schlicht, Ekkehart, 2012. "Unexpected Consequences of Ricardian Expectations," Discussion Papers in Economics 13794, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lmu:muenec:13794
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/13794/1/Schlicht_2012_Unexpected_Consequences_of_Ricardian_Expectations.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Soon Ryoo & Peter Skott, 2013. "Public debt and full employment in a stock-flow consistent model of a corporate economy," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(4), pages 511-528.
    2. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    3. Barro, Robert J, 1989. "The Ricardian Approach to Budget Deficits," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 37-54, Spring.
    4. Cosimo Magazzino, 2012. "Fiscal Policy, Consumption and Current Account in the European Countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 1330-1344.
    5. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    6. Ekkehart Schlicht, 2013. "Unexpected Consequences of Ricardian Expectations," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 498-512, July.
    7. Ekkehart Schlicht, 2006. "Public Debt As Private Wealth: Some Equilibrium Considerations," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(4), pages 494-520, November.
    8. Schlicht, Ekkehart, 2012. "A case where Barro expectations are not rational," Economics Discussion Papers 2012-13, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    9. Bernheim, B Douglas & Bagwell, Kyle, 1988. "Is Everything Neutral?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 308-338, April.
    10. Buchanan, James M, 1976. "Barro on the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(2), pages 337-342, April.
    11. Wynne Godley & Marc Lavoie, 2012. "Fiscal Policy in a Stock-Flow Consistent (SFC) Model," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Marc Lavoie & Gennaro Zezza (ed.), The Stock-Flow Consistent Approach, chapter 9, pages 194-215, Palgrave Macmillan.
    12. Evans, Paul, 1985. "Do Large Deficits Produce High Interest Rates?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 68-87, March.
    13. Feldstein, Martin S, 1976. "Perceived Wealth in Bonds and Social Security: A Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(2), pages 331-336, April.
    14. Barro, Robert J, 1976. "Reply to "Perceived Wealth in Bonds and Social Security" and "Barro on the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem."," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(2), pages 343-349, April.
    15. Briotti, Maria Gabriella, 2005. "Economic reactions to public finance consolidation: a survey of the literature," Occasional Paper Series 38, European Central Bank.
    16. Maria Gabriella Briotti, 2005. "Economic reactions to public finance consolidation - a survey of the literature," Occasional Paper Series 38, European Central Bank.
    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. Ekkehart Schlicht, 2013. "Unexpected Consequences of Ricardian Expectations," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 498-512, July.
    2. Ekkehart Schlicht, 2014. "Unexpected Consequences of Ricardian Expectations—Erratum," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(1), pages 191-194, February.
    3. Schlicht, Ekkehart, 2012. "A case where Barro expectations are not rational," Economics Discussion Papers 2012-13, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    4. Wolfgang Kuhle, 2014. "The Optimal Structure for Public Debt," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65(2), pages 321-348, May.
    5. repec:lmu:muenar:14673 is not listed on IDEAS

    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. 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.
    2. Roberto Ricciuti, 2003. "Assessing Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 55-78, February.
    3. Robert J. Barro, 1996. "Reflections on Ricardian Equivalence," NBER Working Papers 5502, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Tarlok Singh, 2017. "Ricardian equivalence and the public and private saving nexus in India," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(36), pages 3579-3598, August.
    5. repec:lmu:muenar:14673 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. B. Douglas Bernheim, 1987. "Ricardian Equivalence: An Evaluation of Theory and Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1987, Volume 2, pages 263-316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Xinshen DIAO & Terry L. ROE & A. Erinç YELDAN, 1999. "How Fiscal Mismanagement May Impede Trade Reform: Lessons From An Intertemporal, Multi-Sector General Equilibrium Model For Turkey," The Developing Economies, Institute of Developing Economies, vol. 37(1), pages 59-88, March.
    8. Alpha C. Chiang & Stephen M. Miller, 1998. "The Perception of Government Bonds and Money as Net Wealth: An Integrated Approach," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 24(4), pages 435-448, Fall.
    9. Magazzino, Cosimo, 2011. "The nexus between public expenditure and inflation in the Mediterranean countries," MPRA Paper 28493, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Krishanu Pradhan, 2016. "Ricardian Approach to Fiscal Sustainability in India," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 10(4), pages 499-529, November.
    11. Divino, José Angelo & Orrillo, Jaime, 2017. "Failure of the Ricardian Equivalence Theory in Economies with Incomplete Markets," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 37(1), May.
    12. Konzelmann, S., 2012. "The Economics of Austerity," Working Papers wp434, Centre for Business Research, University of Cambridge.
    13. Francesco Forte & Cosimo Magazzino, 2013. "Twin Deficits in the European Countries," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 19(3), pages 289-310, August.
    14. Muhammad Afzal, 2012. "Ricardian equivalence hypothesis: Evidence from Pakistan," E3 Journal of Business Management and Economics., E3 Journals, vol. 3(6), pages 258-265.
    15. Sardoni, Claudio, 2021. "The public debt and the Ricardian equivalence: Some critical remarks," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 153-160.
    16. Peter Skott, 2016. "Aggregate demand, functional finance, and secular stagnation," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 13(2), pages 172-188, September.
    17. Joseph Mawejje & Nicholas M. Odhiambo, 2020. "The determinants of fiscal deficits: a survey of literature," International Review of Economics, Springer;Happiness Economics and Interpersonal Relations (HEIRS), vol. 67(3), pages 403-417, September.
    18. Gennaro Zezza, 2012. "The impact of fiscal austerity in the Eurozone," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 1(0), pages 37-54.
    19. Waśniewski, Krzysztof, 2014. "Public debt, fiscal decisions and political power," MPRA Paper 59635, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Wasniewski, Krzysztof, 2016. "The economic power of veto players – the connection between fiscal policies, and political systems," MPRA Paper 69849, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Jorge Iván González, 2002. "James Tobin (1918-2002)," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 4(6), pages 200-221, January-J.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Barro-Ricardo equivalence; Ricardian equivalence; fiscal policy; debt; taxation; rational expectations; Ricardian expectations; Barro expectations;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E12 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Keynes; Keynesian; Post-Keynesian; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:lmu:muenec:13794. 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: Tamilla Benkelberg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.