IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/abn/wpaper/auwp2013-19.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Fiscal Limit and Non-Ricardian Consumers

Author

Listed:
  • Alexander W. Richter

Abstract

The U.S. faces exponentially rising entitlement obligations. I introduce a fiscal limit - a point where higher taxes are no longer a feasible financing mechanism - into a Perpetual Youth model to assess how intergenerational redistributions of wealth and the maturity of government debt impact the consequences of explosive government transfers. Intergenerational transfers of wealth strengthen the expectational effects of the fiscal limit and magnify the likelihood of stagflation. A longer average maturity of debt weakens these effects in the short/medium-runs but still increases stagflation in the long-run. Delaying reform increases the severity and duration of the stagflationary period.

Suggested Citation

  • Alexander W. Richter, 2013. "The Fiscal Limit and Non-Ricardian Consumers," Auburn Economics Working Paper Series auwp2013-19, Department of Economics, Auburn University.
    • Handle: RePEc:abn:wpaper:auwp2013-19
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cla.auburn.edu/econwp/Archives/2013/2013-19.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Farmer, Roger E.A. & Nourry, Carine & Venditti, Alain, 2011. "Debt, deficits and finite horizons: The stochastic case," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 111(1), pages 47-49, April.
    2. Annicchiarico, Barbara & Giammarioli, Nicola & Piergallini, Alessandro, 2012. "Budgetary policies in a DSGE model with finite horizons," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 111-130.
    3. Cochrane, John H, 2001. "Long-Term Debt and Optimal Policy in the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 69-116, January.
    4. Congressional Budget Office, 2010. "The Long-Term Budget Outlook," Reports 21546, Congressional Budget Office.
    5. Huixin Bi & Eric M. Leeper & Campbell Leith, 2013. "Uncertain Fiscal Consolidations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 31-63, February.
    6. Davig, Troy & Leeper, Eric M. & Walker, Todd B., 2010. ""Unfunded liabilities" and uncertain fiscal financing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(5), pages 600-619, July.
    7. Bi, Huixin, 2012. "Sovereign default risk premia, fiscal limits, and fiscal policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 389-410.
    8. Troy Davig & Andrew Foerster, 2019. "Uncertainty and Fiscal Cliffs," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(7), pages 1857-1887, October.
    9. Woodford, Michael, 2001. "Fiscal Requirements for Price Stability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(3), pages 669-728, August.
    10. Menahem E. Yaari, 1965. "Uncertain Lifetime, Life Insurance, and the Theory of the Consumer," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 32(2), pages 137-150.
    11. Stefano Eusepi & Bruce Preston, 2010. "Central Bank Communication and Expectations Stabilization," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 235-271, July.
    12. Feldstein, Martin, 2009. "Inflation, Tax Rules, and Capital Formation," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226241791, September.
    13. Davig, Troy & Leeper, Eric M., 2011. "Monetary-fiscal policy interactions and fiscal stimulus," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 211-227, February.
    14. Davig, Troy, 2004. "Regime-switching debt and taxation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 837-859, May.
    15. Troy Davig & Eric M Leeper, 2011. "Temporarily Unstable Government Debt and Inflation," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 59(2), pages 233-270, June.
    16. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    17. Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Scott Burns, 2005. "The Coming Generational Storm: What You Need to Know about America's Economic Future," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262612089, April.
    18. Giammarioli, Nicola & Annicchiarico, Barbara & Piergallini, Alessandro, 2006. "Fiscal policy in a monetary economy with capital and finite lifetime," Working Paper Series 661, European Central Bank.
    19. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg, 1997. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bern97-1.
    20. Ireland, Peter N., 1997. "A small, structural, quarterly model for monetary policy evaluation," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 83-108, December.
    21. Barbara Annicchiarico & Alessandro Piergallini, 2007. "Monetary Rules and Deficit Shocks," Spanish Economic Review, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(1), pages 39-57, March.
    22. Kenneth L. Judd, 1998. "Numerical Methods in Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262100711, April.
    23. Daniel, Betty C. & Shiamptanis, Christos, 2013. "Pushing the limit? Fiscal policy in the European Monetary Union," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 2307-2321.
    24. Congressional Budget Office, 2013. "The 2013 Long-Term Budget Outlook," Reports 44521, Congressional Budget Office.
    25. Leith, Campbell & Wren-Lewis, Simon, 2000. "Interactions between Monetary and Fiscal Policy Rules," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(462), pages 93-108, March.
    26. Freedman, Charles & Kumhof, Michael & Laxton, Douglas & Muir, Dirk & Mursula, Susanna, 2010. "Global effects of fiscal stimulus during the crisis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(5), pages 506-526, July.
    27. Sbordone, Argia M., 2002. "Prices and unit labor costs: a new test of price stickiness," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 265-292, March.
    28. Alexander Richter & Nathaniel Throckmorton & Todd Walker, 2014. "Accuracy, Speed and Robustness of Policy Function Iteration," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 44(4), pages 445-476, December.
    29. Betty C. Daniel & Christos Shiamptanis, 2008. "Fiscal policy in the European Monetary Union," International Finance Discussion Papers 961, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    30. Kotlikoff, Laurence J. & Smetters, Kent & Walliser, Jan, 2007. "Mitigating America's demographic dilemma by pre-funding social security," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 247-266, March.
    31. Mariacristina De Nardi & Selahattin Imrohoroglu & Thomas J. Sargent, 1999. "Projected U.S. Demographics and Social Security," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(3), pages 575-615, July.
    32. Julio J. Rotemberg & Michael Woodford, 1997. "An Optimization-Based Econometric Framework for the Evaluation of Monetary Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997, Volume 12, pages 297-361, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Fluctuating Macro Policies and the Fiscal Theory," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2006, Volume 21, pages 247-316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    34. Davig, Troy & Leeper, Eric M. & Walker, Todd B., 2011. "Inflation and the fiscal limit," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 31-47, January.
    35. Rotemberg, Julio J, 1982. "Sticky Prices in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1187-1211, December.
    36. Alessandro Piergallini, 2006. "Real Balance Effects and Monetary Policy," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 44(3), pages 497-511, July.
    37. Huixin Bi & Eric M. Leeper, 2010. "Sovereign Debt Risk Premia and Fiscal Policy in Sweden," NBER Working Papers 15810, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    38. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1985. "Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 223-247, April.
    39. Ben S. Bernanke & Julio J. Rotemberg (ed.), 1997. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1997," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026252242x, April.
    40. Giancarlo Corsetti & Keith Kuester & André Meier & Gernot J. Müller, 2010. "Debt Consolidation and Fiscal Stabilization of Deep Recessions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 41-45, May.
    41. Annicchiarico Barbara & Marini Giancarlo & Piergallini Alessandro, 2008. "Monetary Policy and Fiscal Rules," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 8(1), pages 1-42, February.
    42. Sims, Christopher A, 2002. "Solving Linear Rational Expectations Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 20(1-2), pages 1-20, October.
    43. repec:cbo:report:215461 is not listed on IDEAS
    44. Leeper, Eric M., 1991. "Equilibria under 'active' and 'passive' monetary and fiscal policies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 129-147, February.
    45. Trabandt, Mathias & Uhlig, Harald, 2011. "The Laffer curve revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 305-327.
    46. Gallant, A Ronald & Rossi, Peter E & Tauchen, George, 1993. "Nonlinear Dynamic Structures," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 871-907, July.
    47. Congressional Budget Office, 2010. "The Long-Term Budget Outlook," Reports 21546, Congressional Budget Office.
    48. Dixit, Avinash K & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1977. "Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Diversity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(3), pages 297-308, June.
    49. Tahereh Alavi Hojjat & Bhagyavati, 2009. "Petrodollars, Globalization And U.S. Inflation," Global Journal of Business Research, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 3(2), pages 49-63.
    50. Bi, Huixin, 2012. "Sovereign default risk premia, fiscal limits, and fiscal policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 389-410.
    51. International Monetary Fund, 2009. "Fiscal Implications of the Global Economic and Financial Crisis," IMF Staff Position Notes 2009/013, International Monetary Fund.
    52. Cochrane, John H., 2011. "Understanding policy in the great recession: Some unpleasant fiscal arithmetic," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 2-30, January.
    53. Mark Huggett & Gustavo Ventura, 1999. "On the Distributional Effects of Social Security Reform," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(3), pages 498-531, July.
    54. Cushing, Matthew J., 1999. "The indeterminacy of prices under interest rate pegging: The non-Ricardian case," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(1), pages 131-148, August.
    55. Coleman, Wilbur John, II, 1991. "Equilibrium in a Production Economy with an Income Tax," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(4), pages 1091-1104, July.
    56. Van Der Ploeg, Frederick & Marini, Giancarlo, 1988. "Finite horizons and the non-neutrality of money," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 57-61.
    57. International Monetary Fund, 2009. "Fiscal Implications of the Global Economic and Financial Crisis," IMF Occasional Papers 2009/002, International Monetary Fund.
    58. Stefano Eusepi & Bruce Preston, 2012. "Debt, Policy Uncertainty, And Expectations Stabilization," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 860-886, August.
    59. Congressional Budget Office, 2013. "The 2013 Long-Term Budget Outlook," Reports 44521, Congressional Budget Office.
    60. Smetters, Kent & Walliser, Jan, 2004. "Opting out of social security," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(7-8), pages 1295-1306, July.
    61. International Monetary Fund, 2009. "Fiscal Implications of the Global Economic and Financial Crisis," IMF Staff Position Notes 2009/13, International Monetary Fund.
    62. Congressional Budget Office, 2013. "The 2013 Long-Term Budget Outlook," Reports 44521, Congressional Budget Office.
    63. Imrohoroglu, Ayse & Imrohoroglu, Selahattin & Joines, Douglas H, 1995. "A Life Cycle Analysis of Social Security," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 6(1), pages 83-114, June.
    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. Alexander Richter & Nathaniel Throckmorton & Todd Walker, 2014. "Accuracy, Speed and Robustness of Policy Function Iteration," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 44(4), pages 445-476, December.
    2. António Afonso & João Tovar Jalles, 2012. "Revisiting fiscal sustainability: panel cointegration and structural breaks in OECD countries," Working Papers Department of Economics 2012/29, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    3. Christine Ma & Chung Tran, 2016. "Fiscal Space under Demographic Shift," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2016-642, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    4. Richter, Alexander W. & Throckmorton, Nathaniel A., 2015. "The consequences of an unknown debt target," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 76-96.
    5. Marco Airaudo & Salvatore Nisticò & Luis‐Felipe Zanna, 2015. "Learning, Monetary Policy, and Asset Prices," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(7), pages 1273-1307, October.
    6. Eric M. Leeper, 2015. "Fiscal Analysis is Darned Hard," NBER Working Papers 21822, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Eric M. Leeper & Todd B. Walker, 2012. "Perceptions and Misperceptions of Fiscal Inflation," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis, pages 255-299, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Moises S. Andrade & Tiago Berriel, 2016. "Is There an Output Free Lunch for Fiscal Inationary Policies?," Textos para discussão 650, Department of Economics PUC-Rio (Brazil).
    9. Kostas Mavromatis, 2020. "Finite Horizons and the Monetary/Fiscal Policy Mix," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(4), pages 327-378, September.

    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. Davig, Troy & Leeper, Eric M. & Walker, Todd B., 2011. "Inflation and the fiscal limit," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 31-47, January.
    2. Eric M. Leeper & Todd B. Walker, 2011. "Fiscal Limits in Advanced Economies," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 30(1), pages 33-47, March.
    3. Troy Davig & Eric M Leeper, 2011. "Temporarily Unstable Government Debt and Inflation," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 59(2), pages 233-270, June.
    4. Alexander Richter & Nathaniel Throckmorton & Todd Walker, 2014. "Accuracy, Speed and Robustness of Policy Function Iteration," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 44(4), pages 445-476, December.
    5. Davig, Troy & Leeper, Eric M. & Walker, Todd B., 2010. ""Unfunded liabilities" and uncertain fiscal financing," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(5), pages 600-619, July.
    6. Eric M. Leeper & Todd B. Walker, 2012. "Perceptions and Misperceptions of Fiscal Inflation," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis, pages 255-299, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Huixin Bi & Wenyi Shen & Shu‐Chun S. Yang, 2022. "Fiscal implications of interest rate normalization in the United States," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(2), pages 868-904, May.
    8. Richard W. Evans & Laurence J. Kotlikoff & Kerk L. Phillips, 2012. "Game Over: Simulating Unsustainable Fiscal Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis, pages 177-202, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Daniel, Betty C. & Shiamptanis, Christos, 2012. "Fiscal risk in a monetary union," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1289-1309.
    10. Richter, Alexander W. & Throckmorton, Nathaniel A., 2015. "The consequences of an unknown debt target," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 76-96.
    11. Gliksberg, Baruch, 2013. "Monetary policy and fiscal limits with no-default," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 285-304.
    12. Sokolova, Anna, 2015. "Fiscal limits and monetary policy: default vs. inflation," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 189-198.
    13. Eric M. Leeper, 2010. "Monetary science, fiscal alchemy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 361-434.
    14. Huixin Bi & Eric M. Leeper & Campbell Leith, 2013. "Uncertain Fiscal Consolidations," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 31-63, February.
    15. Christos Shiamptanis, 2015. "Risk Assessment Under A Nonlinear Fiscal Policy Rule," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 53(3), pages 1539-1555, July.
    16. Annicchiarico, Barbara & Giammarioli, Nicola & Piergallini, Alessandro, 2012. "Budgetary policies in a DSGE model with finite horizons," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 66(2), pages 111-130.
    17. Kostas Mavromatis, 2020. "Finite Horizons and the Monetary/Fiscal Policy Mix," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 16(4), pages 327-378, September.
    18. Sokolova, A., 2014. "Sovereign Risk and Monetary Policy," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 21(1), pages 56-82.
    19. Eric M. Leeper, 2009. "Anchors Away: How Fiscal Policy Can Undermine the Taylor Principle," NBER Working Papers 15514, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Heer, Burkhard & Polito, Vito & Wickens, Michael R., 2020. "Population aging, social security and fiscal limits," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Finite Lifetime; Long-Term Debt; Policy Uncertainty; Fiscal Limit; Entitlement Reform;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects

    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:abn:wpaper:auwp2013-19. 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: Hyeongwoo Kim (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deaubus.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.