Constantine Angyridis

ENDOGENOUS GROWTH WITH PUBLIC CAPITAL AND PROGRESSIVE TAXATION

This paper considers an endogenous growth model with public capital and heterogeneous agents. Heterogeneity is due to differences in discount factors and inherent abilities. This allows us to closely approximate the 2007 U.S. income and wealth distributions. Government expenditures, including public investment, are financed through a progressive income tax along with a flat tax on consumption. Three revenue-neutral fiscal policy reforms are considered: (i) an increase in the degree of progressivity of the tax schedule that reduces the after-tax income distribution Gini coefficient to its lowest value over the period 1979–2009, (ii) a reduction in the progressivity ratio that causes the Gini coefficient of the wealth distribution to come close to 1, and (iii) an increase in the fraction of output allocated to public investment that has the same positive impact on the growth rate as reform (ii). It is shown that increasing investment in public capital is the only type of policy that simultaneously enhances growth and reduces both types of inequality (income and wealth). We also find that the public-investment-to-output ratio that maximizes social welfare crucially depends on the elasticity of the labor supply. With a more elastic labor supply the optimal ratio is 4.40%, whereas with a less elastic labor supply it is 5.53%.

Monetary Policy in a Small Open Economy with Marshallian Preferences

We study the effects of inflation for a small open economy when the representative agent has Marshallian preferences, with which the rate of time preference is a decreasing function of savings. An increase in the inflation rate reduces the permanent income of the representative agent, which, with Marshallian preferences, also reduces the rate of time preference. Hence, savings falls and the country runs a current account deficit. The numerical evaluations of the model suggest that inflation has significant effects on welfare in the steady state.