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Tax Discounting in a High‐debt Economy

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  • Lorenzo Pozzi

Abstract

This paper estimates a consumption function for Belgium that allows for government debt discounting and for the overall discounting of the future (reflecting the consumers’ planning horizon or precautionary savings). It also allows for substitutability or complementarity effects from government expenditures. Results suggest that consumers do take into account (future) government activity. Ricardian Equivalence is rejected however, since we cannot reject a relatively short planning horizon or a precautionary savings motive for the consumers. We use bootstrapped distributions for inference since the instrumental variables estimators used may have non‐standard distributions. This procedure also helps to tackle potential endogeneity and sample size problems.

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  • Lorenzo Pozzi, 2003. "Tax Discounting in a High‐debt Economy," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(3), pages 261-282, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:obuest:v:65:y:2003:i:3:p:261-282
    DOI: 10.1111/1468-0084.t01-1-00051
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    Cited by:

    1. Reitschuler, Gerhard, 2008. "Assessing Ricardian equivalence for the New Member States: Does debt-neutrality matter?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 119-128, June.
    2. Tine Dhont & Freddy Heylen, 2009. "Employment and growth in Europe and the US--the role of fiscal policy composition," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 61(3), pages 538-565, July.
    3. Frank M. Fossen & Davud Rostam-Afschar, 2013. "Precautionary and Entrepreneurial Savings: New Evidence from German Households," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 75(4), pages 528-555, August.
    4. Griet Malengier & Lorenzo Pozzi, 2005. "Examining Ricardian Equivalence by estimating and bootstrapping a nonlinear dynamic panel model," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2005 61, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.

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