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Fiscal Policy in a Real-Business-Cycle Model with Labor-intensive Government Services and Endogenous Public Sector Wages and Hours

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  • Vasilev, Aleksandar

Abstract

Motivated by the high public employment, and the public wage premia observed in Europe, a Real-Business-Cycle model, calibrated to German data (1970-2007), is set up with a richer government spending side, and an endogenous private-public sector labor choice. To illustrate the e ects of scal policy, two regimes are compared and contrasted to one another - exogenous vs. optimal (Ramsey) policy case. The main ndings from the computational experiments performed in this paper are: (i) The optimal steady-state capital tax rate is zero; (ii) A higher labor tax rate is needed in the Ramsey case to compensate for the loss in capital tax revenue; (iii) Under the optimal policy regime, public sector employment is lower, but government employees receive higher wages; (iv) The benevolent Ramsey planner provides the optimal amount of the public good, substitutes labor for capital in the input mix for public services production, and private output; (v) Government wage bill is smaller, while public investment is three times higher than in the exogenous policy case.

Suggested Citation

  • Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2013. "Fiscal Policy in a Real-Business-Cycle Model with Labor-intensive Government Services and Endogenous Public Sector Wages and Hours," SIRE Discussion Papers 2013-82, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics (SIRE).
    • Handle: RePEc:edn:sirdps:518
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    Cited by:

    1. Aleksandar Vasilev, 2017. "On the Cost of Opportunistic Behavior in the Public Sector: A General-Equilibrium Approach," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 19(2), pages 565-582, April.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    optimal policy; government spending; public employment and wages;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E69 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Other
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General

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