Friday, February 22, 2013

win with Wynne

The main conclusions are as follows. Consider an economy in which neither inflation nor the balance of payments is a constraint on output, so that any permanent increase in demand leads to an equal and permanent rise in output. In such an economy, tax cuts or additional government expenditure are eventually self-financing. They lead to some increase in government debt, but not to an explosion, since this debt will ultimately stabilise. The factor stabilising the debt is the behaviour of output. Following a fiscal stimulus, output will rise and tax revenue will automatically increase. Moreover, the expansion will continue to the point where additional tax revenue is sufficient to halt government borrowing and stabilise the debt. In an inflation-constrained economy, the expansionary process will lead to an unsustainable inflation and the government will be compelled to half the expansion before tax revenue has increased sufficiently to stabilise the government debt. In a balance of payments constrained economy, the government debt will grow without limit because the output multiplier will be too small to generate the tax revenue required to stabilise government debt. The counterpart to expanding government debt will be an expanding national debt to foreigners.
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