IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cai/reofsp/reof_116_0191.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Solidarité intergénérationnelle et dette publique

Author

Listed:
  • Xavier Timbeau

Abstract

Fund expenditure by debt or by taxes is it equivalent? Ricardo, formalized and extended by Barro, says that debt is a future tax and agents, conscious of the future, should not consider the use of debt as different of a deferred payment. But the framework of Barro is so special that the result is not likely. Public debt suspends the issue of funding. As generations pass, the older have the opportunity to escape taxation, while the youngest are exposed to this. But an analysis of funding choices may not be limited to who is paying. It must also take into account that the choice of expenditure and its financing involves the modification of the trajectory of the economy. The expenditure will benefit, according to its nature, more or less to the current generations or to the future one. The funding method should be chosen only on the basis of this criterion. More generally, assigning the goal of no impact on future generations is futile. Our choices have consequences in the future, directly or indirectly. We are tied to future generations. JEL Classification codes: I20, H2, H5, H6, D6.

Suggested Citation

  • Xavier Timbeau, 2011. "Solidarité intergénérationnelle et dette publique," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 191-212.
  • Handle: RePEc:cai:reofsp:reof_116_0191
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cairn.info/load_pdf.php?ID_ARTICLE=REOF_116_0191
    Download Restriction: free

    File URL: http://www.cairn.info/revue-de-l-ofce-2011-1-page-191.htm
    Download Restriction: free
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. André Masson, 2009. "Des liens et des transferts entre générations," Post-Print halshs-00754867, HAL.
    2. Thomas Melonio & Xavier Timbeau, 2006. "L'immatérielle richesse des nations," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 97(2), pages 329-363.
    3. Becker, Gary S, 1974. "A Theory of Social Interactions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1063-1093, Nov.-Dec..
    4. Guillaume Allègre & Thomas Melonio & Xavier Timbeau, 2012. "Dépenses publiques d'éducation et inégalités. Une perspective de cycle de vie," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 63(6), pages 1055-1079.
    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. Philippe Weil, 2008. "Overlapping Generations: The First Jubilee," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(4), pages 115-134, Fall.
    7. Shell, Karl, 1971. "Notes on the Economics of Infinity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(5), pages 1002-1011, Sept.-Oct.
    8. Paul A. Samuelson, 1958. "An Exact Consumption-Loan Model of Interest with or without the Social Contrivance of Money," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 66, pages 467-467.
    9. Carole Bonnet, 2010. "Niveaux de vie : un rattrapage des jeunes générations ?," Regards croisés sur l'économie, La Découverte, vol. 0(1), pages 50-55.
    10. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/8712 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Bernheim, B Douglas & Bagwell, Kyle, 1988. "Is Everything Neutral?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 308-338, April.
    12. Jérôme Creel, 1998. "Les comptes par génération: une présentation critique," Brussels Economic Review, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, vol. 158, pages 145-176.
    13. André Masson, 2002. "Méthodes et usages des comptes générationnels : un regard décalé," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 154(3), pages 1-24.
    14. Lindbeck, Assar & Weibull, Jorgen W, 1986. " Intergenerational Aspects of Public Transfers, Borrowing and Debt," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(1), pages 239-267.
    15. George A. Akerlof, 2007. "The Missing Motivation in Macroeconomics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 5-36, March.
    16. Michel Dietsch & Olivier Garnier, 1989. "La contrainte budgétaire intertemporelle des administrations publiques : conséquences pour l'évaluation des déficits publics," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 90(4), pages 69-85.
    17. Becker, Gary S & Murphy, Kevin M, 1988. "The Family and the State," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 31(1), pages 1-18, April.
    18. Eisner, Robert, 1988. "Extended Accounts for National Income and Product," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 26(4), pages 1611-1684, December.
    19. Robert Haveman, 1994. "Should Generational Accounts Replace Public Budgets and Deficits?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 95-111, Winter.
    20. Boskin, Michael J, 1982. "Federal Government Deficits: Some Myths and Realities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(2), pages 296-303, May.
    21. Carole Bonnet, 2002. "Comptabilité générationnelle appliquée à la France : quelques facteurs d'instabilité des résultats," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 154(3), pages 59-78.
    22. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/1754 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. André Masson, 2009. "Des liens et des transferts entre générations," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-00754867, HAL.
    24. James M. Buchanan, 1966. "The Icons Of Public Debt," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 21(3), pages 544-546, September.
    25. James Tobin, 1965. "The Burden Of The Public Debt: A Review Article," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 20(4), pages 679-682, December.
    26. Carole Bonnet, 2010. "Niveaux de vie : un rattrapage des jeunes générations ?," Reflets et perspectives de la vie économique, De Boeck Université, vol. 0(1), pages 50-55.
    27. repec:hal:wpspec:info:hdl:2441/1754 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8712 is not listed on IDEAS
    29. repec:dau:papers:123456789/5804 is not listed on IDEAS
    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. Xavier Timbeau, 2012. "The fireman and the architect," Chapters, in: Robert M. Solow & Jean-Philippe Touffut (ed.), What’s Right with Macroeconomics?, chapter 1, pages 8-32, Edward Elgar Publishing.

    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. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5l6uh8ogmqildh09h61kh4poj is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Kotlikoff, Laurence J., 2002. "Generational policy," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 27, pages 1873-1932, Elsevier.
    3. 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.
    4. Robinson, James A. & Srinivasan, T.N., 1993. "Long-term consequences of population growth: Technological change, natural resources, and the environment," Handbook of Population and Family Economics, in: M. R. Rosenzweig & Stark, O. (ed.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1175-1298, Elsevier.
    5. Hippolyte d'Albis & Carole Bonnet & Xavier Chojnicki & Najat El Mekkaouide Freitas & Angela Greulich & Jérôme Hubert & Julien Navaux, 2018. "Who pays for the consumption of young and old?," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01799724, HAL.
    6. John Duffy, 2008. "Macroeconomics: A Survey of Laboratory Research," Working Paper 334, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Jun 2014.
    7. André Masson, 2002. "Méthodes et usages des comptes générationnels : un regard décalé," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 154(3), pages 1-24.
    8. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:5:y:2008:i:16:p:1-14 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. António Afonso, 2008. "Euler testing Ricardo and Barro in the EU," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 5(16), pages 1-14.
    10. Koumparoulis, Dimitrios, 2006. "Ευρωπαϊκή Δημοσιονομική Πολιτική Και Οικονομική Μεγέθυνση: Η Νεοκλασική Οικονομική Θεωρία Για Την Περίπτωση Της Ελλάδας [European Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth: The Neoclassical Economic Theory," MPRA Paper 44310, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. MICHEL, Philippe, 2003. "Public debt and limited altruism: is Ricardian equivalence possible if altruism is limited ?," LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE 2003008, Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE).
    12. 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.
    13. 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.
    14. Wolff, Francois-Charles & Laferrere, Anne, 2006. "Microeconomic models of family transfers," Handbook on the Economics of Giving, Reciprocity and Altruism, in: S. Kolm & Jean Mercier Ythier (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 13, pages 889-969, Elsevier.
    15. Arrondel, Luc & Masson, Andre, 2001. " Family Transfers Involving Three Generations," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 103(3), pages 415-443, September.
    16. Gary-Bobo, Robert J. & Nur, Jamil, 2015. "Housing, Capital Taxation and Bequests in a Simple OLG Model," CEPR Discussion Papers 10774, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Niepelt, Dirk, 2019. "On the equivalence of private and public money," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 27-41.
    18. Lakshmi K. Raut, 1996. "Subgame perfect manipulation of children by overlapping generations of agents with two-sided altruism and endogenous fertility," Labor and Demography 9604003, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Schoonbroodt, Alice & Tertilt, Michèle, 2014. "Property rights and efficiency in OLG models with endogenous fertility," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 551-582.
    20. Lee, R., 2016. "Macroeconomics, Aging, and Growth," Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, in: Piggott, John & Woodland, Alan (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Population Aging, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 59-118, Elsevier.
    21. Hippolyte d'Albis & Ikpidi Badji, 2017. "Les inégalités de niveaux de vie entre les générations en France," PSE-Ecole d'économie de Paris (Postprint) halshs-01524882, HAL.
    22. Pazner, Elisha A. & Razin, Assaf, 1980. "Competitive efficiency in an overlapping-generation model with endogenous population," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 249-258, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    public debt; générations; taxes; public expenses; education;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I20 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - General
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics

    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:cai:reofsp:reof_116_0191. 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: Jean-Baptiste de Vathaire (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cairn.info/revue-de-l-ofce.htm .

    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.