This paper responds to the development policy debate involving the World Bank and the IMF on the use of fiscal policy not only for economic stabilization but also to promote economic growth and increase per capita income. A key issue in this debate relates to the effect of the composition of...

We examine the role played by government investment in infrastructure in determining the optimal quantity of public debt in a heterogeneous agent economy with incomplete insurance markets. Calibrating our model to the key aggregate and distributional moments of the U.S. economy for the period...

President Biden signed a $1.9 trillion COVID relief package (the “American Rescue Plan”) on March 11, 2021. Without a corresponding increase in taxes, this plan has set off alarm bells for those concerned about the expansion of government deficits and debt. Mainstream economists have raised...

In this paper we try to draw a possible trajectory of the public utilities supply, taking in consideration actual economic recession correlate with the evolution of public indebtedness which is intended to finance public expenditures. We assume that in order to provide competitive and high...

This paper uses a simple model to analyze the forces that determine the size of the public sector and the quality of workers employed in that sector. Workers are heterogeneous, and the public sector chooses an employment strategy that maximizes a social welfare function U(s, Y) that depends on...

Behavioral economics presents a "paternalistic" rationale for government intervention. Current literature focuses on benevolent government. This paper introduces politicians who may indulge/exploit these behavioral biases. We present an analysis of the novel features that arise when the...

We re-evaluate two forms of fiscal illusion in local public finance: debt illusion and renter illusion. The Ricardian Equivalence Theorem for local governments suggests the form of finance of a public program (tax or debt finance) has no effects on substantive outcomes. For the local case, this...

Barro's model is an AK model, and there cannot be dynamic inefficiency since the social yield of the capital is higher than the growth rate. But it may be that the private yield and thus the interest rate are lower than the growth rate. One can thus have a Ponzi game and the government can allow...

Whether public debt is internal or external, the burden is equivalent in the OLG model. This equivalence holds, regardless of whether the definition of burden reflects Modigliani's view or Lerner's perspective. It results from the assumption of perfect substitutability between public debt and...