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Government Purchases Over the Business Cycle: the Role of Economic and Political Inequality

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  • Ruediger Bachmann
  • Jinhui Bai
Abstract
This paper explores the implications of economic and political inequality for the business cycle comovement of government purchases. We set up and compute a heterogeneous-agent neoclassical growth model, where households value government purchases which are financed by income taxes. A key feature of the model is a wealth bias in the political aggregation process. When calibrated to U.S. wealth inequality and exposed to aggregate productivity shocks, such a model is able to generate milder procyclicality of government purchases than models with no political wealth bias. The degree of wealth bias that matches the observed mild procyclicality of government purchases in the data, is consistent with cross-sectional data on political participation.

Suggested Citation

  • Ruediger Bachmann & Jinhui Bai, 2010. "Government Purchases Over the Business Cycle: the Role of Economic and Political Inequality," NBER Working Papers 16247, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16247
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    4. Marina Azzimonti, 2015. "The dynamics of public investment under persistent electoral advantage," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(3), pages 653-678, July.
    5. Gustavo de Souza, 2022. "It's Good Weather for More Government: The Effect of Weather on Fiscal Policy," Working Paper Series WP 2022-48, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    6. Yuki Uchida, 2018. "Education, social mobility, and the mismatch of talents," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 65(3), pages 575-607, May.
    7. Daniel Carroll & Jim Dolmas & Eric Young, 2021. "The Politics of Flat Taxes," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 39, pages 174-201, January.
    8. Ruediger Bachmann & Jinhui Bai & Minjoon Lee & Fudong Zhang, 2020. "The Welfare and Distributional Effects of Fiscal Volatility: a Quantitative Evaluation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 38, pages 127-153, October.
    9. Marco Bassetto & Leslie McGranahan, 2009. "On the relationship between mobility, population growth, and capital spending in the United States," Working Paper Series WP-09-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    10. Rüdiger Bachmann & Jinhui H. Bai, 2013. "Public consumption over the business cycle," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(3), pages 417-451, November.
    11. Marina Azzimonti-Renzo & Matthew Talbert, 2011. "Partisan cycles and the consumption volatility puzzle," Working Papers 11-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    12. Marina Azzimonti, 2015. "The dynamics of public investment under persistent electoral advantage," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(3), pages 653-678, July.
    13. Marco Bassetto & Leslie McGranahan, 2021. "Mobility, Population Growth, and Public Capital Spending in the United States," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 41, pages 255-277, July.
    14. Alvaro Aguirre, 2024. "Macro Implications of Inequality-driven Political Polarization," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 1011, Central Bank of Chile.
    15. Toda, Alexis Akira, 2019. "Wealth distribution with random discount factors," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 101-113.
    16. Marina Azzimonti & Eva de Francisco & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2014. "Financial Globalization, Inequality, and the Rising Public Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2267-2302, August.
    17. ,, 2014. "A dynamic theory of electoral competition," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 9(2), May.
    18. Daniel R. Carroll & Eric Young, 2014. "The Piketty Transition," Working Papers (Old Series) 1432, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    19. Xu, Kun & Xu, Wenli, 2015. "中国政府消费支出对经济波动的传导机理分析 [Study on Influential Mechanism Between Government Expenditure of Consumption and Economic Fluctuation]," MPRA Paper 70994, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Dec 2015.
    20. Daniel R. Carroll & Jim Dolmas & Eric Young, 2015. "Majority Voting: A Quantitative Investigation," Working Papers (Old Series) 1442, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    21. Pavel Brendler, 2020. "Why hasn't Social Security changed since 1977?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 36, pages 134-157, April.
    22. Daniel R. Carroll, 2013. "The demand for income tax progressivity in the growth model," Working Papers (Old Series) 1106, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    23. Gustavo de Souza, 2022. "On Political and Economic Determinants of Redistribution: Economic Gains, Ideological Gains, or Institutions?," Working Paper Series WP 2022-47, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    24. Coulombe, Raphaelle G., 2021. "The electoral origin of government spending shocks," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E30 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General

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