IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ime/imedps/13-e-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fiscal Reform and Government Debt in Japan: A Neoclassical Perspective

Author

Listed:
  • Gary D. Hansen

    (University of California, Los Angeles (E-mail: ghansen@econ.ucla.edu))

  • Selahattin Imrohoroglu

    (University of Southern California (E-mail: selo@ marshall.usc.edu))

Abstract

Past government spending in Japan is currently imposing a significant fiscal burden that is reflected in a net debt to output ratio near 150 percent. In addition, the aging of Japanese society implies that public expenditures and transfers payments relative to output are projected to continue to rise until at least 2050. In this paper we use a standard growth model to measure the size of this burden in the form of additional taxes required to finance these projected expenditures and to stabilize government debt. The fiscal adjustment needed is very large, in the range of 30-40% of total consumption expenditures. Using a distorting tax such as the consumption tax or the labor income tax requires either tax to rise to unprecedented highs, although the former is much less distorting than the latter. The extremely high tax rates we find highlight the importance of considering alternatives that attenuate the projected increases in public spending and/or enlarge the tax base.

Suggested Citation

  • Gary D. Hansen & Selahattin Imrohoroglu, 2013. "Fiscal Reform and Government Debt in Japan: A Neoclassical Perspective," IMES Discussion Paper Series 13-E-10, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    • Handle: RePEc:ime:imedps:13-e-10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imes.boj.or.jp/research/papers/english/13-E-10.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Selahattin Imrohoroglu & Ayse Imrohoroglu & Kaiji Chen, 2006. "The Japanese Saving Rate," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1850-1858, December.
    2. Raj Chetty & Adam Guren & Day Manoli & Andrea Weber, 2013. "Does Indivisible Labor Explain the Difference between Micro and Macro Elasticities? A Meta-Analysis of Extensive Margin Elasticities," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 1-56.
    3. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Razin, Assaf & Tesar, Linda L., 1994. "Effective tax rates in macroeconomics: Cross-country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 297-323, December.
    4. Fumio Hayashi & Edward C. Prescott, 2004. "The 1990s in Japan: a lost decade," Chapters, in: Paolo Onofri (ed.), The Economics of an Ageing Population, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Imrohoroglu, Selahattin & Sudo, Nao, 2011. "Will a Growth Miracle Reduce Debt in Japan?," Economic Review, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 62(1), pages 44-56, January.
    6. Takeo Hoshi & Takatoshi Ito, 2012. "Defying Gravity: How Long Will Japanese Government Bond Prices Remain High?," NBER Working Papers 18287, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Masaya Sakuragawa & Kaoru Hosono, 2010. "Fiscal Sustainability Of Japan: A Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Approach," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 61(4), pages 517-537, December.
    8. Sakuragawa, Masaya & Hosono, Kaoru, 2011. "Fiscal sustainability in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 434-446.
    9. Selahattin Imrohoroglu & Nao Sudo, 2011. "Productivity and Fiscal Policy in Japan: Short-Term Forecasts from the Standard Growth Model," Monetary and Economic Studies, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan, vol. 29, pages 73-106, November.
    10. Selahattin İmrohoroğlu & Sagiri Kitao & Tomoaki Yamada, 2016. "Achieving Fiscal Balance In Japan," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(1), pages 117-154, February.
    11. Doi, Takero & Hoshi, Takeo & Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi, 2011. "Japanese government debt and sustainability of fiscal policy," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 414-433.
    12. Takeo Hoshi & Takatoshi Ito, 2014. "Defying gravity: can Japanese sovereign debt continue to increase without a crisis? [Fiscal discipline and the cost of public debt service: some estimates for OECD countries]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 29(77), pages 5-44.
    13. Gunji, Hiroshi & Miyazaki, Kenji, 2011. "Estimates of average marginal tax rates on factor incomes in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 81-106, June.
    14. Mr. Kenneth H Kang & Mr. Michael Keen & Mahmood Pradhan & Ruud A. de Mooij, 2011. "Raising the Consumption Tax in Japan: Why, When, How?," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 2011/013, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Kenneth H Kang & Michael Keen & Mahmood Pradhan & Ruud A. de Mooij, 2011. "Raising the Consumption Tax in Japan; Why, When, How?," IMF Staff Discussion Notes 11/13, International Monetary Fund.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Selahattin İmrohoroğlu & Sagiri Kitao & Tomoaki Yamada, 2016. "Achieving Fiscal Balance In Japan," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 57(1), pages 117-154, February.
    2. Selahattin Imrohoroglu, 2017. "Replacing Income Taxation with Consumption Taxation in Japan," CIGS Working Paper Series 17-008E, The Canon Institute for Global Studies.
    3. Hansen, Gary & İmrohoroğlu, Selahattin, 2018. "Replacing income taxation with consumption taxation in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 15-28.
    4. Selahattin İmrohoroğlu & Sagiri Kitao & Tomoaki Yamada, 2017. "Can Guest Workers Solve Japan'S Fiscal Problems?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(3), pages 1287-1307, July.
    5. Ko, Jun-Hyung & Morita, Hiroshi, 2015. "Fiscal sustainability and regime shifts in Japan," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 364-375.
    6. Nakajima, Tomoyuki & Takahashi, Shuhei, 2017. "The optimum quantity of debt for Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 17-26.
    7. Takeo Hoshi & Takatoshi Ito, 2013. "Is the Sky the Limit? Can Japanese Government Bonds Continue to Defy Gravity?," Asian Economic Policy Review, Japan Center for Economic Research, vol. 8(2), pages 218-247, December.
    8. Naoyuki Yoshino & Uwe Vollmer, 2014. "The sovereign debt crisis: why Greece, but not Japan?," Asia Europe Journal, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 325-344, September.
    9. Miyazawa, Kensuke & Yamada, Junji, 2015. "The growth strategy of Abenomics and fiscal consolidation," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 82-99.
    10. Arai, Real & Ueda, Junji, 2013. "A numerical evaluation of the sustainable size of the primary deficit in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 59-75.
    11. Ichiro Muto & Takemasa Oda & Nao Sudo, 2016. "Macroeconomic Impact of Population Aging in Japan: A Perspective from an Overlapping Generations Model," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 64(3), pages 408-442, August.
    12. Kitao, Sagiri, 2015. "Fiscal cost of demographic transition in Japan," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 37-58.
    13. İmrohoroğlu, Selahattin & Kitao, Sagiri & Yamada, Tomoaki, 2019. "Fiscal sustainability in Japan: What to tackle?," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 14(C).
    14. Kitao, Sagiri & Mikoshiba, Minamo, 2020. "Females, the elderly, and also males: Demographic aging and macroeconomy in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 56(C).
    15. Choi, Yoonseok & Hirata, Hideaki & Kim, Sunghyun Henry, 2017. "Tax reform in Japan: Is it welfare-enhancing?," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 12-22.
    16. Matsuoka, Hideaki, 2015. "Fiscal limits and sovereign default risk in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 38(C), pages 13-30.
    17. Gary Hansen & Selahattin Imrohoroglu, 2023. "Demographic Change, Government Debt and Fiscal Sustainability in Japan: The Impact of Bond Purchase by the Bank of Japan," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 50, pages 88-105, October.
    18. Andrés Fernández & Ayşe İmrohoroğlu & Cesar E. Tamayo, 2019. "Saving Rates in Latin America: A Neoclassical Perspective," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 67(4), pages 791-823, December.
    19. Joshua K. Hausman & Johannes F. Wieland, 2014. "Abenomics: Preliminary Analysis and Outlook," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 48(1 (Spring), pages 1-76.
    20. Futagami, Koichi & Konishi, Kunihiko, 2018. "Dynamic analysis of budget policy rules in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 72-88.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Government debt; fiscal policy; aging; Japan;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ime:imedps:13-e-10. 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: Kinken (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imegvjp.html .

    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.