 On the Optimality of U.S. Fiscal Policy: 1960-2010UC3M Working papers. Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de EconomÃa Abstract: This paper assesses the optimality of U.S. fiscal policy from 1960 to 2010. With this purpose, we present a tractable neoclassical economy with a benevolent government and characterize time-consistent, optimal fiscal policy. We then compare the model's prescriptions for income tax rates and government expenditure with their empirical counterparts observed in the U.S. in this period. We find that U.S. income taxation and government consumption expenditure were in line with the model's prescriptions from 1960 to 2000. However, starting in the early 2000s and for the rest of the decade, U.S. fiscal policy trended in a direction opposite to that of the optimal policy prescribed by the model. In particular, U.S. income tax rates declined below their optimal rates, and government consumption expenditures as a share of GDP sharply increased above their optimal levels. By way of example, while our model prescribes a 10% reduction in the government consumption expenditure-to-GDP ratio between 2001 and 2010, the U.S. ratio increased by 23% in this period. Keywords: U.S.; fiscal; policy; Optimal; fiscal; policy (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cte:werepe:we1418 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in UC3M Working papers. Economics from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de EconomÃa |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to econpapers@oru.se.
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.