[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/12750.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Economic Growth with Constraints on Tax Revenues and Public Debt: Implications for Fiscal Policy and Cross-Country Differences

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua Aizenman
  • Kenneth Kletzer
  • Brian Pinto
Abstract
This paper evaluates optimal public investment and fiscal policy for countries characterized by limited tax and debt capacities. We study a non stochastic CRS endogenous growth model where public expenditure is an input in the production process, in countries where distortions and limited enforceability result in limited fiscal capacities, as captured by a maximal effective tax rate. We show how persistent differences in growth rates across countries could stem from differential public finance constraints, and differentiate between the case where the public expenditure finances the flow of recurring spending (such as law enforcement), versus the stock of tangible public infrastructure. Although the flow of public expenditure raises productivity, the government should not borrow to finance it as the resulting increase in public debt would lower welfare and the growth rate. With outstanding public debt, the optimal fiscal policy should keep the debt-to-GDP ratio constant in the economy with or without a binding constraint on tax revenues as a share of GDP - current non-durable public goods should be financed only from current revenue. With investment in the stock of public infrastructure, public sector borrowing to finance the accumulation of public capital goods may allow the economy to reach a long-run optimal growth path faster. With a binding tax capacity constraint, if the ratio of the initial public/private sector stock of capital is smaller than the sustainable balanced growth ratio, the optimal policy for the government is to purchase public capital, financed by debt, to immediately attain the sustainable ratio of public capital to private capital. The sustainable steady-state ratio is endogenous to the initial public-to-private capital ratio, the tax capacity and any exogenous debt limit (say, due to sovereign risk). With capital stock adjustment costs, these statements apply to a transition of finite duration rather than an instantaneous stock jump. With either a binding exogenous debt limit or solvency constrained borrowing, a more patient country will have a higher steady-state growth rate but a lower steady-state public-to-private capital ratio.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Aizenman & Kenneth Kletzer & Brian Pinto, 2007. "Economic Growth with Constraints on Tax Revenues and Public Debt: Implications for Fiscal Policy and Cross-Country Differences," NBER Working Papers 12750, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12750
    Note: ITI PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12750.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff & Miguel A. Savastano, 2003. "Debt Intolerance," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 1-74.
    2. repec:rus:hseeco:123922 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Brian D. Wright & Kenneth M. Kletzer, 2000. "Sovereign Debt as Intertemporal Barter," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 621-639, June.
    4. Gordon, Roger & Li, Wei, 2009. "Tax structures in developing countries: Many puzzles and a possible explanation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 855-866, August.
    5. Robert J. Barro & Xavier Sala-I-Martin, 1992. "Public Finance in Models of Economic Growth," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(4), pages 645-661.
    6. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    7. Joel Slemrod, 1995. "What Do Cross-Country Studies Teach about Government Involvement, Prosperity, and Economic Growth?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(2), pages 373-431.
    8. Cukierman, Alex & Edwards, Sebastian & Tabellini, Guido, 1992. "Seigniorage and Political Instability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 537-555, June.
    9. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    10. Joshua Aizenman & Yothin Jinjarak, 2008. "The collection efficiency of the Value Added Tax: Theory and international evidence," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 391-410.
    11. Baunsgaard, Thomas & Keen, Michael, 2010. "Tax revenue and (or?) trade liberalization," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 563-577, October.
    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. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    2. Pula Leke & Elshani Alban, 2018. "The Relationship Between Public Expenditure and Economic Growth in Kosovo: Findings from a Johansen Co-Integrated Test and a Granger Causality Test," Ekonomika (Economics), Sciendo, vol. 97(1), pages 47-62, January.
    3. Roubini, Nouriel & Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1995. "A growth model of inflation, tax evasion, and financial repression," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 275-301, April.
    4. repec:cep:stieop:41 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Maria Kazakova & Alexandr Knobel & Ilya Sokolov, 2010. "Quality of VAT administration in OECD countries and Russia. Reform of the Russian system of tax collection," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 134P.
    6. Persson, Torsten & Besley, Tim, 2013. "Taxation and Development," CEPR Discussion Papers 9307, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Alexander Knobel & Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev & Ilya Sokolov, 2013. "Quality of the Administration of Value-Added Tax in OECD countries and Russia," Working Papers 0050, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, revised 2013.
    8. Åsa Johansson, 2016. "Public Finance, Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of the Evidence," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1346, OECD Publishing.
    9. Joshua Aizenman & Yothin Jinjarak, 2008. "The collection efficiency of the Value Added Tax: Theory and international evidence," The Journal of International Trade & Economic Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 391-410.
    10. Christian Ebeke & Helene Ehrhart, 2012. "Tax Revenue Instability in Sub-Saharan Africa: Consequences and Remedies," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 21(1), pages 1-27, January.
    11. Alexandru Minea & Patrick Villieu, 2006. "Long-Run Monetary and Fiscal Policy Trade-Off in an Endogenous Growth Model with Transaction Costs," Post-Print halshs-00261119, HAL.
    12. Pula Lekë & Elshani Alban, 2018. "Role of Public Expenditure in Economic Growth: Econometric Evidence from Kosovo 2002–2015," Baltic Journal of Real Estate Economics and Construction Management, Sciendo, vol. 6(1), pages 74-87, June.
    13. Combes, J.-L. & Combes Motel, P. & Minea, A. & Villieu, P., 2015. "Deforestation and seigniorage in developing countries: A tradeoff?," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 220-230.
    14. Steven P. Cassou & Kevin J. Lansing, 1996. "Welfare, stabilization, or growth: a comparison of different fiscal objectives," Working Papers (Old Series) 9614, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    15. Óscar Bajo Rubio & Carmen Díaz Roldán & M.a Dolores Montávez Garcés, "undated". "Fiscal Policy And Growth Revisited: The Case Of The Spanish Regions," Working Papers 19-02 Classification-JEL , Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.
    16. Minea, Alexandru & Villieu, Patrick, 2010. "Financial development, institutional quality and maximizing-growth trade-off in government finance," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 324-335, January.
    17. Hyun Park, 2010. "Fiscal Policy and Equitable Growth," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 121-140, February.
    18. Richard Kneller & Norman Gemmell, 2002. "Fiscal Policy, Growth and Convergence in Europe," European Economy Group Working Papers 14, European Economy Group.
    19. Rochet, Jean-Charles, 2006. "Optimal Sovereign Debt: An Analytical Approach," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1591, Inter-American Development Bank.
    20. Rangan Gupta & Emmanuel Ziramba, 2009. "Tax evasion and financial repression: a reconsideration using endogenous growth models," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 36(6), pages 660-674, October.
    21. Adam, Christopher S. & Bevan, David L., 2005. "Fiscal deficits and growth in developing countries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(4), pages 571-597, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F43 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Economic Growth of Open Economies
    • H20 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - General
    • O41 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models

    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:nbr:nberwo:12750. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.