Question

Consider an open economy with a reasonable level of government debt in proportion of the real GDP. Explain what would be an optimal fiscal policy strategy in an interval of time composed by phases of expansion and contraction of the GDP. What would change if the level of government debt was excessively high?

Answer 1

Fiscal policy is the use of government spending and taxation to influence the economy. Governments use fiscal policy to influence the level of aggregate demand in the economy in an effort to achieve the economic objectives of price stability, full employment, and economic growth.

The government has two levers when setting fiscal policy:

1. Change the level and composition of taxation, and/or
2. Change the level of spending in various sectors of the economy. *There are three main types of fiscal policy:
3. Neutral: This type of policy is usually undertaken when an economy is in equilibrium. In this instance, government spending is fully funded by tax revenue, which has a neutral effect on the level of economic activity.
4. Expansionary: This type of policy is usually undertaken during recessions to increase the level of economic activity. In this instance, the government spends more money than it collects . Spending and taxation are the two levers available to the government for setting fiscal policy. In expansionary fiscal policy, the government increases its spending, cuts taxes, or a combination of both. The increase in spending and tax cuts will increase aggregate demand, but the extent of the increase depends on the spending and tax multipliers.

   The government spending multiplier is a number that indicates how much change in aggregate demand would result from a given change in spending. The government spending multiplier effect is evident when an incremental increase in spending leads to an rise in income and consumption. The tax multiplier is the magnification effect of a change in taxes on aggregate demand. The decrease in taxes has a similar effect on income and consumption as an increase in government spending.

   However, the tax multiplier is smaller than the spending multiplier. This is because when the government spends money, it directly purchases something, causing the full amount of the change in expenditure to be applied to the aggregate demand. When the government cuts taxes instead, there is an increase in disposable income. Part of the disposable income will be spent, but part of it will be saved. The money that is saved does not contribute to the multiplier effect.   

   Expansionary fiscal policy can impact the gross domestic product (GDP) through the fiscal multiplier. The fiscal multiplier (which is not to be confused with the monetary multiplier) is the ratio of a change in national income to the change in government spending that causes it. When this multiplier exceeds one, the enhanced effect on national income is called the multiplier effect.

   The multiplier effect arises when an initial incremental amount of government spending leads to increased income and consumption, increasing income further, and hence further increasing consumption, and so on, resulting in an overall increase in national income that is greater than the initial incremental amount of spending. In other words, an initial change in aggregate demand may cause a change in aggregate output (and hence the aggregate income that it generates) that is a multiple of the initial change. The multiplier effect has been used as an argument for the efficacy of government spending or taxation relief to stimulate aggregate demand.

   For example, suppose the government spends $1 million to build a plant. The money does not disappear, but rather becomes wages to builders, revenue to suppliers, etc. The builders then will have more disposable income, and consumption may rise, so that aggregate demand will also rise. Suppose further that recipients of the new spending by the builder in turn spend their new income, raising demand and possibly consumption further, and so on. The increase in the gross domestic product is the sum of the increases in net income of everyone affected. If the builder receives $1 million and pays out $800,000 to sub contractors, he has a net income of $200,000 and a corresponding increase in disposable income (the amount remaining after taxes). This process proceeds down the line through subcontractors and their employees, each experiencing an increase in disposable income to the degree the new work they perform does not displace other work they are already performing. Each participant who experiences an increase in disposable income then spends some portion of it on final (consumer) goods, according to his or her marginal propensity to consume, which causes the cycle to repeat an arbitrary number of times, limited only by the spare capacity available.