Optimal Fiscal Policy in an Economy Facing Sociopolitical Instability

The paper presents a model of optimal government policy when policy choices may exacerbate sociopolitical instability (SPI). The authors show that optimal policy that takes into account SPI transforms a standard concave growth model into a model with both a poverty trap and endogenous growth. The resulting equilibrium dynamics inherit the properties of government policies and need not be monotone. Indeed, for a broad set of conditions, government policy is unable to eliminate the poverty trap; when these conditions do not hold, "most" countries eventually reach a balanced growth path. The predictions of the model are tested by developing three new measures of SPI for a panel of 58 countries. Estimating optimal policies and the growth equation derived from the model reveals strong support for the theory. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2003.