IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed019/926.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal Fiscal Policy without Commitment: Beyond Lucas-Stokey

Author

Listed:
  • Davide Debortoli

    (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, CREI and BGSE)

  • Pierre Yared

    (Columbia University)

  • Ricardo Nunes

    (University of Surrey)

Abstract

According to the Lucas-Stokey result, a government can structure its debt maturity to guarantee commitment to optimal fiscal policy by future governments. In this paper, we overturn this conclusion, showing that it does not generally hold in the same model and under the same definition of time-consistency as in Lucas-Stokey. Our argument rests on the existence of an overlooked commitment problem that cannot be remedied with debt maturity: a government in the future will not tax on the downward slopping side of the Laffer curve, even if it is ex-ante optimal to do so. In light of this finding, we propose a new framework to characterize time-consistent policy. We consider a Markov Perfect Competitive Equilibrium where a government reoptimizes sequentially and may deviate from the optimal commitment policy. We find that, in a deterministic economy, any stationary distribution of debt maturity must be flat, with the government owing the same amount at all future dates.

Suggested Citation

  • Davide Debortoli & Pierre Yared & Ricardo Nunes, 2019. "Optimal Fiscal Policy without Commitment: Beyond Lucas-Stokey," 2019 Meeting Papers 926, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  • Handle: RePEc:red:sed019:926
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://red-files-public.s3.amazonaws.com/meetpapers/2019/paper_926.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Niepelt, Dirk, 2014. "Debt maturity without commitment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(S), pages 37-54.
    2. Cristina Arellano & Ananth Ramanarayanan, 2012. "Default and the Maturity Structure in Sovereign Bonds," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 187-232.
    3. John H. Cochrane, 2015. "A New Structure for U.S. Federal Debt," Economics Working Papers 15108, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.
    4. Lustig, Hanno & Sleet, Christopher & Yeltekin, Sevin, 2008. "Fiscal hedging with nominal assets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 710-727, May.
    5. Iván Werning, 2007. "Optimal Fiscal Policy with Redistribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 122(3), pages 925-967.
    6. Faraglia, Elisa & Marcet, Albert & Scott, Andrew, 2010. "In search of a theory of debt management," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(7), pages 821-836, October.
    7. Stéphane Guibaud & Yves Nosbusch & Dimitri Vayanos, 2013. "Bond Market Clienteles, the Yield Curve, and the Optimal Maturity Structure of Government Debt," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 26(8), pages 1914-1961.
    8. Mats Persson & Torsten Persson & Lars E. O. Svensson, 2006. "Time Consistency of Fiscal and Monetary Policy: A Solution," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(1), pages 193-212, January.
    9. Fernández, Raquel & Martín, Alberto, 2014. "The Long and the Short of It: Sovereign Debt Crises and Debt Maturity," CEPR Discussion Papers 10322, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Buera, Francisco & Nicolini, Juan Pablo, 2004. "Optimal maturity of government debt without state contingent bonds," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 531-554, April.
    11. Dan Cao & Iván Werning, 2018. "Saving and Dissaving With Hyperbolic Discounting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 805-857, May.
    12. Davide Debortoli & Ricardo Nunes & Pierre Yared, 2017. "Optimal Time-Consistent Government Debt Maturity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 132(1), pages 55-102.
    13. Lucas, Robert Jr. & Stokey, Nancy L., 1983. "Optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an economy without capital," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 55-93.
    14. Fernando Alvarez & Patrick J. Kehoe & Pablo Andrés Neumeyer, 2004. "The Time Consistency of Optimal Monetary and Fiscal Policies," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(2), pages 541-567, March.
    15. Luigi Bocola & Alessandro Dovis, 2019. "Self-Fulfilling Debt Crises: A Quantitative Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(12), pages 4343-4377, December.
    16. Anmol Bhandari & David Evans & Mikhail Golosov & Thomas J. Sargent, 2017. "Fiscal Policy and Debt Management with Incomplete Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 132(2), pages 617-663.
    17. George-Marios Angeletos, 2002. "Fiscal Policy with Noncontingent Debt and the Optimal Maturity Structure," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(3), pages 1105-1131.
    18. Davide Debortoli & Ricardo Nunes, 2013. "Lack Of Commitment And The Level Of Debt," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 11(5), pages 1053-1078, October.
    19. Alessandro Dovis, 2019. "Efficient Sovereign Default," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 86(1), pages 282-312.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Blog mentions

    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Optimal Fiscal Policy without Commitment: Beyond Lucas-Stokey
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2019-10-19 22:48:17

    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. Davide Debortoli & Ricardo Nunes & Pierre Yared, 2022. "The Commitment Benefit of Consols in Government Debt Management," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 255-270, June.
    2. Davide Debortoli & Ricardo Nunes & Pierre Yared, 2021. "Optimal Fiscal Policy without Commitment: Revisiting Lucas-Stokey," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(5), pages 1640-1665.
    3. Davide Debortoli & Ricardo Nunes & Pierre Yared, 2017. "Optimal Time-Consistent Government Debt Maturity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 132(1), pages 55-102.
    4. Beetsma, Roel & Giuliodori, Massimo & Hanson, Jesper & de Jong, Frank, 2021. "The maturity of sovereign debt issuance in the euro area," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    5. Saki Bigio & Galo Nuño & Juan Passadore, 2019. "A framework for debt-maturity management," Working Papers 1919, Banco de España.
    6. Perez, Diego J., 2017. "Sovereign debt maturity structure under asymmetric information," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 243-259.
    7. 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.
    8. Nada Azmy Elberry & Frank Naert & Stijn Goeminne, 2023. "Optimal public debt composition during debt crises: A review of theoretical literature," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(2), pages 351-376, April.
    9. Zhengyang Jiang & Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Mindy Z. Xiaolan, 2020. "Manufacturing Risk-free Government Debt," NBER Working Papers 27786, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Equiza-Goñi, Juan & Faraglia, Elisa & Oikonomou, Rigas, 2023. "Union debt management," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    11. Leeper, E.M. & Leith, C., 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary–Fiscal Phenomenon," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2305-2415, Elsevier.
    12. Basil Guggenheim & Mario Meichle & Thomas Nellen, 2019. "Confederation debt management since 1970," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 155(1), pages 1-23, December.
    13. Saki Bigio & Galo Nuño & Juan Passadore, 2023. "Debt-Maturity Management with Liquidity Costs," Journal of Political Economy Macroeconomics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 1(1), pages 119-190.
    14. Dottori, Davide & Manna, Michele, 2016. "Strategy and tactics in public debt management," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 1-25.
    15. Giovanni Callegari & Ramon Marimon & Adrien Wicht & Luca Zavalloni, 2023. "On a Lender of Last Resort with a Central Bank and a Stability Fund," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 50, pages 106-130, October.
    16. Basil Guggenheim & Mario Meichle & Thomas Nellen, 2019. "Confederation debt management since 1970," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 155(1), pages 1-23, December.
    17. Marcet, Albert & Scott, Andrew & Faraglia, Elisa, 2014. "Modelling Long Bonds - The Case of Optimal Fiscal Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 9965, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Javier Bianchi & Cesar Sosa-Padilla, 2018. "Reserve Accumulation, Macroeconomic Stabilization and Sovereign Risk," 2018 Meeting Papers 1166, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. Alberola, Enrique & Cheng, Gong & Consiglio, Andrea & Zenios, Stavros A., 2023. "Unconventional monetary policy and debt sustainability in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    20. Mark Aguiar & Manuel Amador, 2013. "Take the Short Route: How to Repay and Restructure Sovereign Debt with Multiple Maturities," NBER Working Papers 19717, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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
    • H21 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Efficiency; Optimal Taxation
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign 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:red:sed019:926. 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: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.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.