IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/macdyn/v22y2018i02p501-540_00.html

Fiscal Austerity Measures: Spending Cuts Vs. Tax Increases

Author

Listed:
  • Glomm, Gerhard
  • Jung, Juergen
  • Tran, Chung

Abstract

We formulate an overlapping-generations model with household heterogeneity and productive and nonproductive government programs to study the macroeconomic and intergenerational welfare effects of risk premium shocks and government debt reductions. We demonstrate that in a small open economy with a high level of debt, a small increase in the risk premium of the interest rate leads to a substantial contraction in output and negative welfare effects. We then quantify the effects of reducing the debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio using a wide range of fiscal austerity measures. Our results indicate trade-offs between short-run contractions and long-run expansions in aggregate output. In the short run, spending-based austerity reforms are worse than tax-based reforms in terms of lost income. However, in the long run, spending-based reforms produce higher output than tax-based reforms. In addition, welfare effects vary significantly across generations, skill groups, and working sectors. The current old and middle-aged generations experience welfare losses, whereas future generations are beneficiaries of the reforms.

Suggested Citation

  • Glomm, Gerhard & Jung, Juergen & Tran, Chung, 2018. "Fiscal Austerity Measures: Spending Cuts Vs. Tax Increases," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 501-540, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:22:y:2018:i:02:p:501-540_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1365100516000298/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Germaschewski, Yin & Wang, Shu-Ling, 2022. "Fiscal stabilization in high-debt economies without monetary independence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    2. Wang, Shu-Ling, 2021. "Fiscal stimulus in a high-debt economy? A DSGE analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 118-135.
    3. Mr. Salvatore Dell'Erba & Mr. Marcos Poplawski Ribeiro & Ksenia Koloskova, 2014. "Medium-Term Fiscal Multipliers during Protracted Recessions," IMF Working Papers 2014/213, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Richard Jaimes, 2020. "Fiscal adjustments at the local level: evidence from Colombia," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(5), pages 1148-1173, October.
    5. Vasiliki Dimakopoulou & George Economides & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2021. "The ECB's Policy, the Recovery Fund and the Importance of Trust: The Case of Greece," CESifo Working Paper Series 9371, CESifo.
    6. Dell'Erba, Salvatore & Koloskova, Ksenia & Poplawski-Ribeiro, Marcos, 2018. "Medium-term fiscal multipliers during protracted economic contractions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 35-52.
    7. Elisha Adeboye & Gbemisola Labisi & Victor Ekere, 2024. "Enhanced Financial Reporting for Unfunded Obligations in the US Economy," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(5), pages 1637-1646, May.
    8. Cardani, Roberta & Menna, Lorenzo & Tirelli, Patrizio, 2020. "The Optimal Policy Mix To Achieve Public Debt Consolidation," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(1), pages 113-129, January.
    9. Karamysheva, Madina, 2022. "How do fiscal adjustments work? An empirical investigation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    10. George Economides & Dimitris Papageorgiou & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2021. "Austerity, Assistance and Institutions: Lessons from the Greek Sovereign Debt Crisis," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 435-478, July.
    11. Maebayashi, Noritaka, 2023. "The pace of fiscal consolidations, fiscal sustainability, and welfare: An overlapping generations approach," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    12. George Economides & Dimitris Papageorgiou & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2020. "Macroeconomic policy lessons for Greece," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 152, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    13. Economides, George & Park, Hyun & Philippopoulos, Apostolis & Sakkas, Stelios, 2022. "On The Mix Of Government Expenditure And Tax Revenues," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(1), pages 1-48, January.
    14. Tetsuo Ono, 2020. "Fiscal rules in a monetary economy: Implications for growth and welfare," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(1), pages 190-219, February.
    15. George Economides & Dimitris Papageorgiou & Apostolis Philippopoulos, 2020. "Macroeconomic Policy Lessons for Greece from the Debt Crisis," CESifo Working Paper Series 8188, CESifo.
    16. Maria Ferrara & Elisabetta Marzano & Monica Varlese, 2022. "Fiscal Consolidation Plans with Underground Economy," CESifo Working Paper Series 9622, CESifo.
    17. Gerhard Glomm & Juergen Jung, 2015. "A Macroeconomic Analysis Of Energy Subsidies In A Small Open Economy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(4), pages 1783-1806, October.
    18. Dimakopoulou, Vasiliki & Economides, George & Philippopoulos, Apostolis, 2022. "The ECB's policy, the Recovery Fund and the importance of trust and fiscal corrections: The case of Greece," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    19. George Kudrna & Chung Tran, 2015. "Budget Repair Measures: Tough Choices for Australia's Future," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2015-628, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J26 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demand and Supply of Labor - - - Retirement; Retirement Policies
    • J45 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Particular Labor Markets - - - Public Sector Labor Markets

    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:cup:macdyn:v:22:y:2018:i:02:p:501-540_00. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/mdy .

    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.