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The Sustainability of Budget Deficits in an Inflationary Economy

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Author Info
Harashima, Taiji

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Abstract

This paper examines fiscal sustainability in an inflationary environment, particularly the interrelation between government debt and inflation. A model that explicitly incorporates the political utility/objective function of government is constructed. The government’s borrowing behavior and inflation are determined through the simultaneous optimization of government and households. The sustainable fiscal debt in an inflationary environment was found to equal the present value of primary balances discounted by the time preference rate of government, not by the interest rate. This result raises the question of whether it is appropriate to apply the fiscal sustainability test of Hamilton and Flavin to high inflation countries.

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File URL: http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/1088/
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Paper provided by University Library of Munich, Germany in its series MPRA Paper with number 905.

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Date of creation: 27 Nov 2006
Date of revision: 07 Dec 2006
Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:905

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Related research
Keywords: Fiscal sustainability Inflation The present-value of primary balances The fiscal theory of the price level Leviathan

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management
E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation

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References listed on IDEAS
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  3. Buiter, Willem H, 2004. "A Small Corner of Intertemporal Public Finance - New Developments in Monetary Economics: Two Ghosts, Two Eccentricities, a Fallacy, a Mirage and a Mythos," CEPR Discussion Papers 4407, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Sims, Christopher A, 1994. "A Simple Model for Study of the Determination of the Price Level and the Interaction of Monetary and Fiscal Policy," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 381-99.
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  15. Taiji Harashima, 2004. "The Ultimate Source of Inflation: A Microfoundation of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level," Macroeconomics 0409018, EconWPA, revised 23 Sep 2004. [Downloadable!]
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  21. Michael Woodford, 1995. "Price Level Determinacy Without Control of a Monetary Aggregate," NBER Working Papers 5204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. Darrat, Ali F, 2000. "Are Budget Deficits Inflationary? A Reconsideration of the Evidence," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 7(10), pages 633-36, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  24. Bohn, Henning, 1995. "The Sustainability of Budget Deficits in a Stochastic Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 257-71, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  25. Narayana Kocherlakota & Christopher Phelan, 1999. "Explaining the fiscal theory of the price level," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Fall, pages 14-23. [Downloadable!]
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  27. Karras, Georgios, 1994. "Macroeconomic effects of budget deficits: further international evidence," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 190-210, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  28. Taiji Harashima, 2005. "The Cause of the Great Inflation: Interactions between the Government and the Monetary Policymakers," Macroeconomics 0510026, EconWPA, revised 31 Oct 2005. [Downloadable!]
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Harashima, Taiji, 2007. "Why should central banks be independent?," MPRA Paper 1838, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 19 Feb 2007. [Downloadable!]
  2. Harashima, Taiji, 2008. "A Microfounded Mechanism of Observed Substantial Inflation Persistence," MPRA Paper 10668, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  3. Harashima, Taiji, 2007. "The Optimal Quantity of Money Consistent with Positive Nominal Interest Rates," MPRA Paper 1839, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 19 Feb 2007. [Downloadable!]
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