We introduce public debt in a Ramsey model with heterogenous agents and a public spending externality affecting utility which is financed by income tax and public debt. We show that public debt considered as a fixed portion of GDP can have a stabilizing or destabilizing effect depending on some...

We introduce public spending, financed through income taxation, in the Ramsey model with heterogeneous agents. Public spending as a source of welfare generates more complex dynamics. In contrast to previous contributions focusing on similar models but with wasteful public spending, limit cycles...

Imposing some constraints on public debt is often justified regarding sustainability and stability issues. This is especially the case when the ratio of public debt over GDP is restricted to be constant. Using a Ramsey model, we show that such a constraint can however be a fundamental source of...

We examine the impact of balanced-budget consumption taxes on the existence of expectations-driven business cycles in two-sector economies with infinitely-lived households. We prove that, whatever the relative capital intensity difference across sectors, aggregate instability can occur if the...