IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mlb/wpaper/1043.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Composition of Government Expenditure in an Overlapping Generations Model

Author

Listed:
  • John Creedy
  • Shuyun May Li
  • Solmaz Moslehi

Abstract

This paper examines the choice of government expenditure on public goods and transfer payments (in the form of pension) in an overlapping generations model, in which individuals live for two ‘periods’ and expenditure is financed on a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) basis. The condition required for majority support of the social contract involved in the PAYG scheme is established and shown to be independent of tax rates and expenditure levels. The choice of expenditure composition can thus be made conditional on acceptance of the social contract. Two decision mechanisms regarding the choice of government expenditure are considered. The first is positive and involves majority voting and the second is normative and involves maximizing a social welfare function. In each case the ratio of the transfer payment to public goods expenditure depends, among other things, on the ratio of median to mean income. A reduction in the skewness of the income distribution is associated with a reduction in this ratio, at a decreasing rate.

Suggested Citation

  • John Creedy & Shuyun May Li & Solmaz Moslehi, 2008. "The Composition of Government Expenditure in an Overlapping Generations Model," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1043, The University of Melbourne.
    • Handle: RePEc:mlb:wpaper:1043
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fbe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/802728/1043.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hassler, John & Krusell, Per & Storesletten, Kjetil & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 2005. "The dynamics of government," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1331-1358, October.
    2. Creedy, John & van de Ven, Justin, 2000. "Retirement Incomes: Private Savings versus Social Transfers," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 68(5), pages 539-551, September.
    3. Ghiglino, Christian & Tvede, Mich, 2000. "Optimal Policy in OG Models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 62-83, January.
    4. John Hassler & José V. Rodríguez Mora & Kjetil Storesletten & Fabrizio Zilibotti, 2003. "The Survival of the Welfare State," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 87-112, March.
    5. Borge, Lars-Erik & Rattso, J.Jorn, 2004. "Income distribution and tax structure: Empirical test of the Meltzer-Richard hypothesis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(4), pages 805-826, August.
    6. Grégory De Walque, 2005. "Voting on Pensions: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(2), pages 181-209, April.
    7. Pierre-Richard Agénor, 2008. "Fiscal policy and endogenous growth with public infrastructure," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(1), pages 57-87, January.
    8. Bearse, P. & Glomm, G. & Jeneba, E., 1999. "Composition of Government Budget, Non-Single Peakedness and Majority Voting," Papers 9903, Michigan State - Econometrics and Economic Theory.
    9. Tabellini, Guido & Alesina, Alberto, 1990. "Voting on the Budget Deficit," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 37-49, March.
    10. Been-Lon Chen, 2006. "Economic growth with an optimal public spending composition," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 58(1), pages 123-136, January.
    11. Tridimas, George, 2001. "The Economics and Politics of the Structure of Public Expenditure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 106(3-4), pages 299-316, March.
    12. Rainald Borck, 2007. "Voting, Inequality And Redistribution," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(1), pages 90-109, February.
    13. Hassler, John & Storesletten, Kjetil & Zilibotti, Fabrizio, 2007. "Democratic public good provision," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 133(1), pages 127-151, March.
    14. Creedy, John & Moslehi, Solmaz, 2009. "Modelling the composition of government expenditure in democracies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 42-55, March.
    15. Jose-Victor Rios-Rull & Per Krusell, 1999. "On the Size of U.S. Government: Political Economy in the Neoclassical Growth Model," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1156-1181, December.
    16. Grossman, Gene M & Helpman, Elhanan, 1998. "Intergenerational Redistribution with Short-Lived Governments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(450), pages 1299-1329, September.
    17. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753, June.
    18. Marina Azzimonti & Eva De Francisco & Per Krusell, 2006. "Median‐voter Equilibria in the Neoclassical Growth Model under Aggregation," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 108(4), pages 587-606, December.
    19. John Creedy & Solmaz Moslehi, 2007. "The Optimal Composition of Government Expenditure," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1008, The University of Melbourne.
    20. Bearse, Peter & Glomm, Gerhard & Janeba, Eckhard, 2001. "Composition of Government Budget, Non-single Peakedness, and Majority Voting," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 3(4), pages 471-481.
    21. de la Croix,David & Michel,Philippe, 2002. "A Theory of Economic Growth," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521001151, June.
    22. John Creedy, 1996. "Fiscal Policy and Social Welfare," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 797.
    23. Hodler, Roland, 2008. "Leisure and redistribution," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 354-363, June.
    24. Tridimas, George & Winer, Stanley L., 2005. "The political economy of government size," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 643-666, September.
    25. Meltzer, Allan H & Richard, Scott F, 1981. "A Rational Theory of the Size of Government," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(5), pages 914-927, October.
    26. Richard Disney, 2006. "Household Saving Rates and the Design of Public Pension Programmes: Cross–Country Evidence," National Institute Economic Review, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, vol. 198(1), pages 61-74, October.
    27. Thomas S. McCaleb, 1985. "Public Choice Perspectives on the Flat Tax Follies," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 5(2), pages 613-628, Fall.
    28. Grossmann, Volker, 2003. "Income inequality, voting over the size of public consumption, and growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 265-287, June.
    29. Jo Thori Lind, 2005. "Why is there so little redistribution?," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 31, pages 111-125.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Florian Misch & Norman Gemmell & Richard Kneller, 2014. "Using surveys of business perceptions as a guide to growth-enhancing fiscal reforms," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 22(4), pages 683-725, October.

    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. Creedy, John & Moslehi, Solmaz, 2009. "Modelling the composition of government expenditure in democracies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 42-55, March.
    2. John Creedy & Solmaz Moslehi, 2014. "The composition of government expenditure with alternative choicemechanisms," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 53-71, April.
    3. John Creedy & Solmaz Moslehi, 2008. "Voting over Taxes and Expenditure: The Role of Home Production," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1052, The University of Melbourne.
    4. John Creedy & Solmaz Moslehi, 2010. "The Optimal Division Of Government Expenditure Between Public Goods And Transfer Payments," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 49(2), pages 87-100, June.
    5. Tetsuo Ono, 2015. "Public education and social security: a political economy approach," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 1-25, February.
    6. Tetsuo Ono, 2014. "Economic Growth and the Politics of Intergenerational Redistribution," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 14-17-Rev., Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics, revised Sep 2015.
    7. John Creedy & Solmaz Moslehi, 2007. "The Optimal Composition of Government Expenditure," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 1008, The University of Melbourne.
    8. Milanovic, Branko, 2010. "Four critiques of the redistribution hypothesis: An assessment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 147-154, March.
    9. Richard C. Barnett & Joydeep Bhattacharya & Helle Bunzel, 2014. "Voting For Income-Immiserizing Redistribution In The Meltzer–Richard Model," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(2), pages 682-695, April.
    10. Tetsuo Ono, 2016. "Inequality and the politics of redistribution," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(2), pages 191-217, April.
    11. Tetsuo Ono, 2012. "Inequality Dynamics and the Politics of Redistribution," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 12-09-Rev, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics, revised Nov 2013.
    12. Tetsuo Ono, 2016. "Inequality and the politics of redistribution," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 23(2), pages 191-217, April.
    13. Barnett, Richard & Bhattacharya, Joydeep & Bunzel, Helle, 2012. "Voting for immiserizing income redistribution in the Meltzer-Richard model," School of Economics Working Paper Series 2012-15, LeBow College of Business, Drexel University.
    14. John Creedy & Solamz Moslehi, 2010. "The optimal composition of government expenditure among transfers, education and public goods," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 194(3), pages 41-64, June.
    15. Graziella Bertocchi, 2011. "The Vanishing Bequest Tax: The Comparative Evolution Of Bequest Taxation In Historical Perspective," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 107-131, March.
    16. Daniel Diermeier & Pohan Fong, 2011. "Bargaining over the budget," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 36(3), pages 565-589, April.
    17. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2015. "Redistributive Politics And Government Debt In A Borrowing-Constrained Economy," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(1), pages 83-103, January.
    18. Creedy, John & Li, Shuyun May & Moslehi, Solmaz, 2010. "Inequality Aversion And The Optimal Composition Of Government Expenditure," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(S2), pages 290-306, November.
    19. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2015. "A Political Economy Model of Earnings Mobility and Redistribution Policy," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 17(3), pages 346-382, June.
    20. Francesc Ortega, 2004. "Immigration and the survival of the welfare state," Economics Working Papers 815, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Overlapping Generations Equilibrium Growth Median Voter Optimal Expenditure Public Goods Pensions;

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H41 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - Public Goods
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government

    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:mlb:wpaper:1043. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dandapani Lokanathan). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/demelau.html .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.