From Deficit Delusion to the Fiscal Balance Rule

Although the deficit is a useful construct for Keynesian analyses of fiscal policy, the deficit appears to be a less useful measure of fiscal policy within all but a restricted class of intertemporal neoclassical models. This paper suggests that the nature of deficits in a simple certainty model wit...

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Bibliographic Details
Corporate Author: International Monetary Fund
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Washington, D.C. International Monetary Fund 1989
Series:IMF Working Papers
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: International Monetary Fund - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
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245 0 0 |a From Deficit Delusion to the Fiscal Balance Rule 
260 |a Washington, D.C.  |b International Monetary Fund  |c 1989 
300 |a 26 pages 
651 4 |a United States 
653 |a Fiscal stance 
653 |a Wealth 
653 |a Budget Systems 
653 |a Fiscal rules 
653 |a Saving 
653 |a Fiscal Policy 
653 |a Budget planning and preparation 
653 |a Fiscal policy 
653 |a Budgeting 
653 |a National accounts 
653 |a Consumption; Economics 
653 |a Budget 
653 |a Consumption 
653 |a Macroeconomics 
653 |a Public financial management (PFM) 
653 |a Macroeconomics: Consumption 
653 |a National Budget 
653 |a Budgeting & financial management 
653 |a Public Finance 
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520 |a Although the deficit is a useful construct for Keynesian analyses of fiscal policy, the deficit appears to be a less useful measure of fiscal policy within all but a restricted class of intertemporal neoclassical models. This paper suggests that the nature of deficits in a simple certainty model with nondistortionary policies, and the in settings with uncertain policy, distortionary policy, and liquidity constraints is, to a large extent, arbitrary. It then posits a more appropriate description of fiscal policy for the class of models in question, and proposes the economically meaningful “fiscal balance rule” as an alternative to the economically arbitrary “balanced budget rule” as a means of assessing whether fiscal policy is intergenerationally tight or loose