| 来源类型 | Discussion paper |
| 规范类型 | 论文 |
| 来源ID | DP13097 |
| DP13097 The Political Economy of Public Debt: A Laboratory Study | |
| Marco Battaglini; Salvatore Nunnari; Thomas R Palfrey | |
| 发表日期 | 2018-08-01 |
| 出版年 | 2018 |
| 语种 | 英语 |
| 摘要 | This paper reports the results from a laboratory experiment designed to study political distortions in the accumulation of public debt. A legislature bargains over the levels of a public good and of district specific transfers in two periods. The legislature can issue or purchase risk-free bonds in the first period and the level of public debt creates a dynamic linkage across policymaking periods. In line with the theoretical predictions, we find that public policies are inefficient and efficiency is increasing in the size of the majority requirement, with higher investment in public goods and lower debt associated with larger majority requirements. Debt is lower when the probability of a negative shock to the economy in the second period is higher indicating that even in a political equilibrium debt is used to smooth consumption and to insure against political uncertainty. Finally, also in line with the theoretical predictions, we find that dynamic distortions are eliminated independently of the voting rule when the first period majority can commit to a policy for the second period. The experiment however highlights two phenomena that are surprising in terms of standard theory and have not been previously documented. First, balancing the budget in each period is a focal point, leading to lower distortions than predicted. Second, higher majority requirements induce significant delays in reaching an agreement. |
| 主题 | Macroeconomics and Growth ; Public Economics |
| 关键词 | Dynamic political economy Public debt Bargaining Laboratory experiments |
| URL | https://cepr.org/publications/dp13097 |
| 来源智库 | Centre for Economic Policy Research (United Kingdom) |
| 资源类型 | 智库出版物 |
| 条目标识符 | http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/541901 |
| 推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714 | Marco Battaglini,Salvatore Nunnari,Thomas R Palfrey. DP13097 The Political Economy of Public Debt: A Laboratory Study. 2018. |
| 条目包含的文件 | 条目无相关文件。 | |||||
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