Time consistent fiscal policies in a Ramsey economy. (English) Zbl 1283.91126
Summary: This paper revisits a well-known case of optimal fiscal policy in a Ramsey model where consumer utility is defined over consumption and public goods. We show that “normalising” the size of the population to one eliminates the scope for active policy-making since the decentralised equilibrium coincides with social planning. Then, we modify the model to allow for a population of \(N > 1\) agents, whereby restoring the role of the government as a policy-maker. Both in the Stackelberg case and in the decentralised game, we prove that optimal fiscal policy and consumption are not only time consistent but also subgame perfect.
MSC:
| 91B62 | Economic growth models |
| 91A23 | Differential games (aspects of game theory) |
| 91B42 | Consumer behavior, demand theory |
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