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Sovereign Debt vs Redistributive Taxes: Financing Recoveries in Unequal and Uncommitted Economies

Author

Listed:
  • Mikhail Golosov

    (Princeton University)

  • Ali Shourideh

    (University of Pennsylavnia)

  • Alessandro Dovis

    (Penn State)

Abstract

In this paper, we study optimal design of taxes and debt in the medium term in presence of domestic inequality and lack of commitment. We study an OLG economy in which individuals work and save for retirement when young. Government of the small open economy provides transfers to both the young and the old while it can decide to finance its spending via taxation of labor income as well as borrowing from the rest of the world. We show that in such environment, government has two different motives to renege on its past promises: 1. `Domestic default' to reduce domestic wealth inequality, 2. `Sovereign default' to reduce transfers to foreign lenders. We show that episodes of high income inequality create strong incentive for sovereign default. We show that this interaction between the domestic and sovereign default motive leads to oscillatory dynamics in the model. That is, it is optimal for such economies to periodically raise taxes above and below its long-run levels during an episode of economic recovery. Moreover, the level of after tax income inequality is time-varying: When the government is repaying foreign debt it is optimal to allow for more inequality.

Suggested Citation

  • Mikhail Golosov & Ali Shourideh & Alessandro Dovis, 2014. "Sovereign Debt vs Redistributive Taxes: Financing Recoveries in Unequal and Uncommitted Economies," 2014 Meeting Papers 874, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed014:874
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    Cited by:

    1. Pablo D'Erasmo & Enrique G. Mendoza, 2016. "Distributional Incentives In An Equilibrium Model Of Domestic Sovereign Default," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 7-44, February.
    2. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    3. Xiaoshan Chen & Campbell Leith & Mattia Ricci, 2018. "Debt Sustainability and Welfare along an Optimal Laffer Curve," Working Papers 2018_02, Durham University Business School.
    4. Xiaoshan Chen & Campbell Leith & Mattia Ricci, 2018. "Debt Sustainability and Welfare along an Optimal Laffer Curve," Department of Economics Working Papers 2018_02, Durham University, Department of Economics.

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