IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/6336.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Model of Endogenous Fiscal Deficits and Delayed Fiscal Reforms

Author

Listed:
  • Andres Velasco

Abstract

This paper develops a political-economic model of fiscal policy one in which" government resources are a common property' out of which interest groups can finance" expenditures on their preferred items. This setup has striking macroeconomic implications. " First, fiscal deficits and debt accumulation occur even when there are no reasons for intertemporal smoothing. Second deficits can be eliminated through a fiscal reform, but such a reform may only take place after a" delay during which government debt is built up.

Suggested Citation

  • Andres Velasco, 1997. "A Model of Endogenous Fiscal Deficits and Delayed Fiscal Reforms," NBER Working Papers 6336, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6336
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6336.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1993. "Sustainable Plans and Mutual Default," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 175-195.
    2. Bizer, David S. & Durlauf, Steven N., 1990. "Testing the positive theory of government finance," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 123-141, August.
    3. Bulow, Jeremy & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1989. "Sovereign Debt: Is to Forgive to Forget?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 43-50, March.
    4. Atkeson, Andrew, 1991. "International Lending with Moral Hazard and Risk of Repudiation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(4), pages 1069-1089, July.
    5. Aizenman, Joshua, 1992. "Competitive Externalities and the Optimal Seigniorage," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 24(1), pages 61-71, February.
    6. Kornai, J, 1979. "Resource-Constrained versus Demand-Constrained Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 47(4), pages 801-819, July.
    7. Drew Fudenberg & Eric Maskin, 2008. "The Folk Theorem In Repeated Games With Discounting Or With Incomplete Information," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 11, pages 209-230, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    8. Mr. Robert Holzmann, 1991. "Budgetary Subsidies in Centrally Planned Economies in Transition," IMF Working Papers 1991/011, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Mariano Tommasi & Mark P. Jones & Pablo Sanguinetti, 1997. "Politics, Institutions, and Fiscal Performance in the Argentine Provinces," Working Papers 16, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Apr 2000.
    10. Chari V. V. & Kehoe Patrick J., 1993. "Sustainable Plans and Debt," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 230-261, December.
    11. Ernesto Stein & Ernesto Talvi & Alejandro Grisanti, 1999. "Institutional Arrangements and Fiscal Performance: The Latin American Experience," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance, pages 103-134, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Buiter, W.H. & Corsetti, G. & Roubini, N., 1992. "Excessive Deficits: Sense and Nonsence in the Treaty of Maastricht," Papers 674, Yale - Economic Growth Center.
    13. Benhabib, Jess & Rustichini, Aldo, 1991. "Social Conflict, Growth and Inequality," Working Papers 91-46, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    14. repec:bla:scandj:v:88:y:1986:i:1:p:195-22 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Krueger, Anne O, 1974. "The Political Economy of the Rent-Seeking Society," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 64(3), pages 291-303, June.
    16. 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.
    17. Alesina, Alberto & Hausmann, Ricardo & Hommes, Rudolf & Stein, Ernesto, 1999. "Budget institutions and fiscal performance in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 253-273, August.
    18. Shah, Anwar, 1990. "The new fiscal federalism in Brazil," Policy Research Working Paper Series 557, The World Bank.
    19. Bomfim, Antulio & Shah, Anwar, 1994. "Macroeconomic management and the division of powers in Brazil: Perspectives for the 1990s," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 535-542, April.
    20. Chari, V V & Jones, Larry E & Marimon, Ramon, 1997. "The Economics of Split-Ticket Voting in Representative Democracies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 957-976, December.
    21. Roubini, Nouriel, 1991. "Economic and political determinants of budget deficits in developing countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(1, Supple), pages 49-72, March.
    22. Cukierman, Alex & Edwards, Sebastian & Tabellini, Guido, 1992. "Seigniorage and Political Instability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 537-555, June.
    23. V. V. Chari & Harold L. Cole, 1993. "A contribution to the theory of pork barrel spending," Staff Report 156, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    24. Benhabib, Jess & Velasco, Andres, 1996. "On the optimal and best sustainable taxes in an open economy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 135-154, January.
    25. Carlos E. Zarazaga, 1993. "Hyperinflations and moral hazard in the appropriation of seigniorage," Working Papers 93-26, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    26. Drazen, Allan & Grilli, Vittorio, 1993. "The Benefit of Crises for Economic Reforms," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 598-607, June.
    27. Jess Benhabib & Aldo Rustichini, 1991. "Social Conflict," Discussion Papers 937, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    28. Nouriel Roubini & Jeffrey Sachs, 1989. "Government Spending and Budget Deficits in the Industrial Economies," NBER Working Papers 2919, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Andres Velasco, 1997. "Debts and Deficits with Fragmented Fiscal Policymaking," NBER Working Papers 6286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Velasco, Andres, 2000. "Debts and deficits with fragmented fiscal policymaking," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 105-125, April.
    3. Andres Velasco, 1999. "A Model of Endogenous Fiscal Deficits and Delayed Fiscal Reforms," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance, pages 37-58, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Alesina, A. & Passalacqua, A., 2016. "The Political Economy of Government Debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2599-2651, Elsevier.
    5. Alberto F. Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 1999. "Budget Deficits and Budget Institutions," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance, pages 13-36, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Alesina, Alberto & Hausmann, Ricardo & Hommes, Rudolf & Stein, Ernesto, 1999. "Budget institutions and fiscal performance in Latin America," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 253-273, August.
    7. Barry Eichengreen & Ricardo Hausmann & Jürgen Von Hagen, 1999. "Reforming Budgetary Institutions in Latin America: The Case for a National Fiscal Council," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 10(4), pages 415-442, October.
    8. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    9. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe, 1993. "Sustainable Plans and Mutual Default," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(1), pages 175-195.
    10. Juan Carlos Echeverry & Leopoldo Fergusson & Pablo Querubin, 2004. "La Batalla Política Por El Presupuesto De La Nación: Inflexibilidades O Supervivencia Fiscal," Documentos CEDE 2944, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    11. Chari V. V. & Kehoe Patrick J., 1993. "Sustainable Plans and Debt," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 230-261, December.
    12. Derek Hung Chiat Chen, 2003. "Intertemporal excess burden, bequest motives, and the budget deficit," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3086, The World Bank.
    13. Talvi, Ernesto & Vegh, Carlos A., 2005. "Tax base variability and procyclical fiscal policy in developing countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 156-190, October.
    14. Christopher Sleet, 2004. "Optimal Taxation with Private Government Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(4), pages 1217-1239.
    15. Ziogas, Thanasis & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2021. "Revisiting the political economy of fiscal adjustments," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    16. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson, 2011. "Pillars of Prosperity: The Political Economics of Development Clusters," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9624.
    17. Maurice Obstfeld, 1989. "Dynamic Seigniorage Theory: An Exploration," NBER Working Papers 2869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Jones, Mark P. & Sanguinetti, Pablo & Tommasi, Mariano, 2000. "Politics, institutions, and fiscal performance in a federal system: an analysis of the Argentine provinces," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 305-333, April.
    19. Drudi, Francesco & Prati, Alessandro, 2000. "Signaling fiscal regime sustainability," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1897-1930, December.
    20. Ricardo J. Caballero & Pierre Yared, 2008. "Inflating the Beast: Political Incentives Under Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 13779, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents

    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:6336. 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.