scholarly journals THE BURDEN OF UNANTICIPATED INFLATION: ANALYSIS OF AN OVERLAPPING-GENERATIONS MODEL WITH PROGRESSIVE INCOME TAXATION AND STAGGERED PRICES

2011 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-308 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burkhard Heer ◽  
Alfred Maußner

Inflation is often associated with a loss for the poor in the medium and long term. We study the short-run redistributive effects of unanticipated inflation in a dynamic optimizing sticky price model of the business cycle. Agents are heterogeneous with regard to their age and their productivity. We emphasize three channels of the effect of inflation on income distribution: (1) factor prices, (2) “bracket creep,” and (3) sticky pensions. Unanticipated inflation that is caused by monetary expansion is found to reduce income inequality. In particular, an increase of the money growth rate by one standard deviation results in a 1% drop of the Gini coefficient of disposable income if extra tax revenues are transferred lump-sum to the households.

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (3) ◽  
pp. 644-676 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theodore Palivos ◽  
Dimitrios Varvarigos

In a two-period overlapping-generations model with production, we consider the damaging impact of environmental degradation on health and consequently life expectancy. Despite the presence of social constant returns to capital, which would otherwise generate unbounded growth, when pollution is left unabated, the economy cannot achieve such a path. Instead, it converges either to a stationary level of capital per worker or to a cycle in which capital per worker oscillates permanently. The government's involvement in environmental preservation proves crucial for both short-term dynamics and long-term prospects of the economy. Particularly, an active policy of pollution abatement emerges as an important engine of long-run economic growth. Furthermore, by eliminating the occurrence of limit cycles, pollution abatement is also a powerful source of stabilization.


2010 ◽  
Vol 14 (S2) ◽  
pp. 176-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald Wendner

This paper investigates the impact of the desire to keep up with the Joneses (KUJ) on economic growth and optimal tax policy in a continuous-time, overlapping-generations model with AK technology and exogenous, gradual retirement. Due to the desire to KUJ, the propensity to consume out of total wealth rises (declines), and the balanced growth rate declines (increases), when the households' individual total (physical and human) wealth is increasing (decreasing) with age. The rate of retirement determines whether or not a household's total wealth is increasing with age. If total wealth is increasing (decreasing) with age, an optimal allocation is decentralized by an intergenerationally progressive (regressive) lump-sum tax system. The desire to KUJ strengthens the intergenerational regressivity (progressivity) of the optimal tax system. The optimal tax implications of the desire to KUJ are a key finding of this paper.


Author(s):  
Ryoji Hiraguchi

AbstractIt is well-known that in the monetary OLG models, a deviation from the Friedman rule can improve welfare because it generates intergenerational wealth transfers; however, the rule becomes optimal if the age-specific lump-sum tax policy is available. We revisit the issue using a microfounded model of money with centralized and decentralized markets. The individuals live for two periods. The young individuals work, receive wage income and hold money and capital in the centralized market. They also trade goods in the decentralized markets either as a buyer or a seller. Only money is accepted as a means of payment in the decentralized markets. The old individuals consume all their wealth in the centralized market. The quantity in the decentralized market negatively depends on the seller’s wealth, because the marginal utility of consumption in the centralized market is diminishing, but the buyer takes it as exogenous. Therefore, the equilibrium wealth exceeds the socially optimal level under the Friedman rule. A positive nominal interest rate makes money holdings costly, reduces wealth and improves welfare, even if the government optimally uses the age-specific tax.


1987 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 235-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas M. Holloway

Net interest paid has been one of the most rapidly growing components of federal government expenditures since 1970. Unlike other components of the budget, public policy actions can have little effect on its rise—especially in the short run. For this reason, it is important to examine the forces “automatically” affecting net interest paid. This article examines the sources of change in net interest paid and provides an analytical framework to estimate the automatic effects of the business cycle and inflation. The framework incorporates the most important factors affecting net interest paid, including interest rates, budget deficits, and outstanding stocks (short-term and long-term debt and direct loans), and highlights the simultaneous relationship between net interest paid and changes in net debt (federal debt outstanding less direct loans outstanding). A sample application of the analytical framework is discussed.


1997 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 740-769 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROGER E.A. FARMER ◽  
MICHAEL WOODFORD

We demonstrate that multiple stationary rational-expectations equilibria exist in a version of Lucas's island economy. The existence of these equilibria follows from the fact that there is an indeterminate set of monetary equilibria in the two-period overlapping-generations model. We show how to construct stationary rational-expectations equilibria by randomizing over the set of nonstationary monetary equilibria. In some of our equilibria, a positively sloped Phillips curve exists even though our economy contains no signal-extraction problem as in the original Lucas paper. Our equilibria are indexed by beliefs and are examples of the existence of sunspot equilibria in which allocations may differ across states of nature for which preferences, technology, and endowments are identical. Our technique for constructing stationary sunspot equilibria should prove useful in a wide class of models in which an indeterminate stationary equilibrium exists.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Scharrer

Abstract Empirically, revenues of public pension systems are more volatile than expenditures. Therefore, the question arises how the social security authority should buffer its revenues and adjust its contributions over the business cycle. This paper studies the corresponding effects on the life cycle of households and the business cycle in a large-scale overlapping generations model. In particular, the labor supply is endogenous and takes the intertemporal links between contributions and pension benefits into account. Sluggish adjustments of contribution rates that are implemented by adjusting a financial buffer stock both stabilize an economy and decrease the volatility of lifetime utilities of most workers and retirees, in contrast to sole adjustments of contribution rates. However, changes of consumption, capital income, or lump sum taxes, which aim to balance public pension budgets, improve the allocation of aggregate risk across cohorts for people up to an age of at least 71 years.


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