IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ecorec/v73y1997i220p35-44.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ignorance and Ricardian Equivalence

Author

Listed:
  • DAVID GRUEN

Abstract

An immortal, intertemporally‐optimizing consumer who is ignorant of the link between bonds and future taxes, is exposed to the changing level of US Federal government debt over the 30 years, 1961–90. Estimates of the cost of ignorance are about $1 to $10 per annum. Provided governments do not use bond‐financing too aggressively, it may therefore be privately optimal for consumers to ignore the link between bonds and future taxes. Then bond‐financed fiscal policy has significant systematic effects on aggregate demand and national savings.

Suggested Citation

  • David Gruen, 1997. "Ignorance and Ricardian Equivalence," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 73(220), pages 35-44, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ecorec:v:73:y:1997:i:220:p:35-44
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1475-4932.1997.tb00977.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4932.1997.tb00977.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1475-4932.1997.tb00977.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hall, Robert E, 1978. "Stochastic Implications of the Life Cycle-Permanent Income Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(6), pages 971-987, December.
    2. Kotlikoff, Laurence J & Summers, Lawrence H, 1981. "The Role of Intergenerational Transfers in Aggregate Capital Accumulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 706-732, August.
    3. John Campbell & Angus Deaton, 1989. "Why is Consumption So Smooth?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(3), pages 357-373.
    4. N. Gregory Mankiw & Julio J. Rotemberg & Lawrence H. Summers, 1985. "Intertemporal Substitution in Macroeconomics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(1), pages 225-251.
    5. 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..
    6. Michael J. Boskin, 1987. "Concepts and Measures of Federal Deficits and Debt and Their Impact on Economic Activity," NBER Working Papers 2332, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Milton Friedman, 1957. "Introduction to "A Theory of the Consumption Function"," NBER Chapters, in: A Theory of the Consumption Function, pages 1-6, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Akerlof, George A & Yellen, Janet L, 1985. "Can Small Deviations from Rationality Make Significant Differences to Economic Equilibria?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 708-720, September.
    9. Mankiw, N Gregory, 1985. "Consumer Durables and the Real Interest Rate," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 67(3), pages 353-362, August.
    10. Milton Friedman, 1957. "A Theory of the Consumption Function," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number frie57-1, July.
    11. Cochrane, John H, 1989. "The Sensitivity of Tests of the Intertemporal Allocation of Consumption to Near-Rational Alternatives," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 319-337, June.
    12. John Y. Campbell & N. Gregory Mankiw, 1989. "Consumption, Income, and Interest Rates: Reinterpreting the Time Series Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 185-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Hall, Robert E, 1988. "Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 339-357, April.
    14. Boskin, Michael J., 1987. "Concepts and Measures of Federal Deficits and Debt and their Impact on Economic Activity," CEPR Publications 244437, Stanford University, Center for Economic Policy Research.
    15. repec:fth:harver:1435 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Boskin, Michael J, 1982. "Federal Government Deficits: Some Myths and Realities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(2), pages 296-303, May.
    17. Seater, John J, 1993. "Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(1), pages 142-190, March.
    18. Gruen, David W R, 1991. "What People Know and What Economists Think They Know: Surveys on Ricardian Equivalence," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(56), pages 1-9, June.
    19. Hall, Robert E & Mishkin, Frederic S, 1982. "The Sensitivity of Consumption to Transitory Income: Estimates from Panel Data on Households," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(2), pages 461-481, March.
    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. Martin Browning & Thomas F. Crossley, 2001. "The Life-Cycle Model of Consumption and Saving," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 3-22, Summer.
    2. Anton Gerunov, 2016. "Cyclical dynamics of key fiscal aggregates in Bulgaria over the period 1998-2014," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 2, pages 56-73,74-89.

    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. Cavalcanti, Carlos B., 1993. "Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption: An American Investigation for Brazil," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 13(2), November.
    2. Orazio P. Attanasio, 1998. "Consumption Demand," NBER Working Papers 6466, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Attanasio, Orazio P., 1995. "The intertemporal allocation of consumption: theory and evidence," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 39-56, June.
    4. Daria Pignalosa, 2021. "The Euler Equation Approach: Critical Implications of Recent Developments in the Theory of Intertemporal Choice," Bulletin of Political Economy, Bulletin of Political Economy, vol. 15(1), pages 1-43, June.
    5. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption : Saving decisions : Testing the finite horizon model," Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    6. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1997_006 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Yulei Luo, 2008. "Consumption Dynamics under Information Processing Constraints," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(2), pages 366-385, April.
    8. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption: Saving decisions: Testing the finite horizon model," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    9. Reis, Ricardo, 2006. "Inattentive consumers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(8), pages 1761-1800, November.
    10. Loïc Cadiou, 1995. "Le mystère de la consommation perdue," Revue de l'OFCE, Programme National Persée, vol. 53(1), pages 147-164.
    11. Parise, Gerald F., 1994. "Permanent income hypothesis and the cost of adjustment," ISU General Staff Papers 1994010108000012303, Iowa State University, Department of Economics.
    12. 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.
    13. Luis A. Gil-Alana & Antonio Moreno & Seonghoon Cho, 2012. "The Deaton paradox in a long memory context with structural breaks," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(25), pages 3309-3322, September.
    14. Yulei Luo & William T. Smith & Heng-fu Zou, 2009. "The Spirit of Capitalism and Excess Smoothness," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 10(2), pages 281-301, November.
    15. Grigoli, Francesco & Herman, Alexander & Schmidt-Hebbel, Klaus, 2018. "Saving in the world," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 257-270.
    16. Brunila, Anne, 1996. "Fiscal policy and private consumption : Saving decisions : Evidence from Finland," Research Discussion Papers 28/1996, Bank of Finland.
    17. Pemberton, James, 1997. "Modelling and measuring income uncertainty in life cycle models," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 14(1), pages 81-98, January.
    18. Cheng K. Wu, 1997. "New Result in Theory of Consumption: Changes in Savings and Income Growth," Macroeconomics 9706007, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Brunila, Anne, 1996. "Fiscal policy and private consumption: Saving decisions: Evidence from Finland," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 28/1996, Bank of Finland.
    20. Christopher D. Carroll & Jiri Slacalek & Martin Sommer, 2011. "International Evidence on Sticky Consumption Growth," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(4), pages 1135-1145, November.

    More about this item

    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:bla:ecorec:v:73:y:1997:i:220:p:35-44. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esausea.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.