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Sustaining Ramsey plans with one-period bonds

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  • Begoña Domínguez

    (The University of Queensland)

Abstract

Governments issue bonds that affect the choices of future governments. If carefully chosen, the debt structure can make the optimal fiscal policy plan time consistent, as shown by Lucas and Stokey (J Monet Econ 12(1):55–93, 1983). Yet the implementation of this method requires governments to solve high-dimensionality debt issuance problems and to commit to honor all debt payments even for very long maturities. This paper characterizes the Markov-perfect policy with only one-period bonds. I show that, with enough variety of one-period bonds, the optimal bond issuance makes the Markov-perfect policy plan coincide with the Ramsey policy plan. I establish these results for a general policy problem, which encompasses models such as that of Lucas and Stokey (1983), as well as economies with physical capital and an implementation lag on capital taxation.

Suggested Citation

  • Begoña Domínguez, 2020. "Sustaining Ramsey plans with one-period bonds," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 70(2), pages 387-410, September.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:joecth:v:70:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s00199-019-01212-9
    DOI: 10.1007/s00199-019-01212-9
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Optimal policy; Taxes; Time consistency; Debt structure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

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