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Does it Pay to Have a Balanced Government Budget?

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  • Alfred Greiner

Abstract

This paper presents an endogenous growth model with public capital and public debt. The primary-surplus-to-GDP ratio is set such that it is a positive function of the debt ratio, which is a necessary condition for the intertemporal budget constraint of the government. The paper studies growth and welfare effects of the model, assuming a balanced government budget, and compares the outcome with the scenario where public debt grows in the long run, but at a smaller rate than capital and consumption, and with the scenario where public debt grows at the same rate as capital and consumption.

Suggested Citation

  • Alfred Greiner, 2008. "Does it Pay to Have a Balanced Government Budget?," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 164(3), pages 460-476, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(200809)164:3_460:diptha_2.0.tx_2-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ghosh, Sugata & Mourmouras, Iannis A., 2004. "Endogenous growth, welfare and budgetary regimes," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 623-635, December.
    2. Alfred Greiner, 2007. "An Endogenous Growth Model With Public Capital And Sustainable Government Debt," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 58(3), pages 345-361, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Bohn, Henning, 1995. "The Sustainability of Budget Deficits in a Stochastic Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 257-271, February.
    5. Friedrich Heinemann, 2006. "Factor mobility, government debt and the decline in public investment," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 3(1), pages 11-26, April.
    6. Futagami, Koichi & Iwaisako, Tatsuro & Ohdoi, Ryoji, 2008. "Debt Policy Rule, Productive Government Spending, And Multiple Growth Paths," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(4), pages 445-462, September.
    7. Greiner, Alfred & Semmler, Willi, 2000. "Endogenous Growth, Government Debt and Budgetary Regimes," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 363-384, July.
    8. Gang Gong & Alfred Greiner & Willi Semmler, 2001. "Growth Effects of Fiscal Policy and Debt Sustainability in the EU," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 3-19, March.
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Alfred Greiner, 2015. "Fiscal and Monetary Policy in a Basic Endogenous Growth Model," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 45(2), pages 285-301, February.
    2. Alfred Greiner, 2015. "Public Debt, Productive Public Spending and Endogenous Growth," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 66(4), pages 520-535, December.
    3. Alfred Greiner, 2011. "Sustainability of public debt: Some theoretical considerations," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(4), pages 3311-3319.
    4. Alfred Greiner & Peter Flaschel, 2010. "Public Debt And Public Investment In An Endogenous Growth Model With Real Wage Rigidities," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 57(1), pages 68-84, February.
    5. Alfred Greiner, 2010. "Does the 'Golden Rule of Public Finance' imply a lower long-run growth rate? A clarification," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 30(2), pages 975-982.
    6. Tsintzos, Panagiotis & Dergiades, Theologos, 2011. "Uncertainty in the public debt market and stochastic long-run growth," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 67-73.
    7. Ueshina, Mitsuru, 2018. "The effect of public debt on growth and welfare under the golden rule of public finance," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 1-11.
    8. Alfred Greiner, 2012. "Human capital formation, learning by doing and the government in the process of economic growth," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 59(1), pages 71-89, February.
    9. Alfred Greiner, 2013. "Debt and growth: Is there a non-monotonic relation?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(1), pages 340-347.
    10. Alfred Greiner, 2011. "Economic Growth, Public Debt and Welfare: Comparing Three Budgetary Rules," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(2), pages 205-222, May.
    11. Greiner, Alfred, 2012. "Public debt in a basic endogenous growth model," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 1344-1348.
    12. Bara, Aman Appolinus & Chakraborty, Bidisha, 2019. "Why should the government provide the infrastructure through the Public-Private Partnership mode?," MPRA Paper 95008, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Paulo Brito, 2017. "Government Debt, Fiscal Rules and Singular Growth Dynamics," Dynamic Modeling and Econometrics in Economics and Finance, in: Bettina Bökemeier & Alfred Greiner (ed.), Inequality and Finance in Macrodynamics, pages 43-74, Springer.
    14. Max Groneck, 2011. "The golden rule of public finance and the composition of government expenditures: a growth and welfare analysis," Journal of Economic Policy Reform, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(4), pages 273-294, December.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures

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