This book presents a theoretically-based comprehensive analysis of macroeconomic consequences of fiscal policy using a popular economic model: the overlapping generations growth model. A wide range of essential public finance issues is analyzed, including the effects of tax reform on dynamic efficiency, positive and normative effects of public spending, considerations of taxes on fixed assets and monetary holdings, and sustainability of deficits. A unique approach is applied in the study of public finance: one expected to generate substantial interest among current graduate students and active researchers.

This textbook equips instructors and students with an overview of the existing literature so that the latter can attain an overall understanding of macroeconomic and microeconomic public finance. The literature on public finance has grown dramatically with theoretical studies and empirical analysis, and much of the focus has been on macroeconomic effects of public services. The standard textbook offerings, however, are mainly restricted to microeconomic topics of public finance. This text intends to fill this gap by presenting a theoretical-based, comprehensive explanation of public finance. Particular emphasis is directed at developing tools that can be applied theoretically and empirically to clarify essential economic concerns in the current public sector in advanced countries, including Japan. Such concerns include the macroeconomic effect of fiscal policy, the dependence on bonds for covering government deficits, and social security reform. The main text explains the standard concepts of public finance, and the appendix offers various advanced topics. The material will facilitate an understanding of how to investigate changes in the public sector, interpret results, and basically do research on fiscal policy. The textbook will be of value to a broad range of course offerings, including those generally focused on fiscal policy, on social security reform and on tax reform.

The paper studies the dynamic allocation effects of tax policy in the context of an overlapping generations model of the Blanchard-Yaari type. The model is extended to allow for endogenous labor supply and three tax instruments: a capital income tax, labor income tax, and consumption tax. Analytical expressions and simple diagrams are used to discuss the impact, transition, and long-run effects of tax policy changes. It is shown that a part of the long-run incidence of capital and consumption taxes falls on capital when households’ horizons are finite, whereas labor would fully bear the burden of these taxes in an infinite horizon model.

This book considers public debt dynamics in various endogenous growth mod els, namely the AK model and explicit models of innovation and human cap ital accumulation. Furthermore, the closed economy, the small open economy and a two-country world are analysed. In the closed economy model, the focus is on budget deficit and public debt dynamics and their influence on capital growth and output growth. Then, in the open economy model, the effects on foreign debt growth are considered. In a two-country setting, public debt growth in one country affects growth in the other country. In each scenario the government either fixes the deficit ratio or the tax rate. For both strategies the steady state is derived and stability is analysed. Then, dynamics induced by various shocks and policy measures are explored. Many diagrams illustrate the dynamics. I greatly benefited from comments by Michael Carlberg. In addition, Alkis Otto and Justus Haucap discussed with me many parts of the book. I wish to thank them all. Hamburg, February 2003 Michael Briiuninger Contents 1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part I The Closed Economy with AK Production 2 The Solow Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 . . . . . . . . . . 2. 1 Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 2. 2 Fixing the Deficit Ratio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . 2. 2. 1 The Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . 2. 2. 2 Stability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 2. 2. 3 Some Shocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 . . . . . . . . . 2. 2. 4 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2. 3 Fixing the Tax Rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 . . . . . . . . . 2. 3. 1 The Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 2. 3. 2 Stability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 2. 3. 3 Some Shocks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 . . . . . . . . . 2. 3. 4 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The 800 pound gorilla in the room of macroeconomics is the question of why the overlapping generations model didn’t become the central workhorse model for macroeconomics, as opposed to the neoclassical growth model. The authors here explore the co-evolution of the two models.

Offering comprehensive, up-to-date and insightful analyses of China's public finance, the book examines reforms, identifies problems and provides solutions. Using the latest data and illustrative diagrams, the author explains everything with expertise and clarity. This is an indispensable resource for any researcher or student interested in China.

A rigorous, self-contained textbook covering all the central topics in public economics.

This paper presents details of a symposium on forecasting performance I organized under the auspices of the IMF Staff Papers. The assumption that the forecaster's goal is to do as well as possible in predicting the actual outcome is sometimes questionable. ln the context of private sector forecasts, this is because the incentives for forecasters may induce them to herd rather than to reveal their true forecasts. Public sector forecasts may also be distorted, although for different reasons. Forecasts associated with IMF programs, for example, are often the result of negotiations between the IMF staff and the country authorities and are perhaps more accurately viewed as goals, or targets, rather than pure forecasts. The standard theory of time series forecasting involves a variety of components including the choice of an information set, the choice of a cost function, and the evaluation of forecasts in terms of the average costs of the forecast errors. It is generally acknowledged that by including more relevant information in the information set, one should be able to produce better forecasts.

Farmer argues for the future of macroeconomics as a branch ofapplied general equilibrium theory. His main theme is thatmacroeconomics is best viewed as the study of equilibrium environmentsin which the welfare theorems break down.