Implicit tax co-ordination under repeated policy interactions

In the context of a stylised gaine theoretical framework of capital tax competition, we show that when repeated policy interactions are associated to a systematic punishment of the deviating policymaker, a coordinated outcome can be the solution to the non cooperative tax game. This resuit suggests that explicit forms of policy coordination, such as a centralised tax authority, could in fact be largely unnecessary.Policy coordination, international fiscal issues

Self-control and savings

We reconsider the well-established paradigm of a rational individual's choice of a consumption schedule, building on the idea that human beings devote resources to withstand their desire for immediate consumption, i.e. to become more patient, thereby making less remote the pleasure derived from deferred consumption. We construct an infinite-horizon model of a small open economy, in which individuals can accumulate a stock of personal capital that reduces the discount on future consumption. Personal capital captures the effect of a conumer's past experience and choices on his future utilities. Our main results are: i) when individuals are heterogenous with respect to ability to become patient all individuals exhibit the same rate of time preference in the long run; ii) effort is rewarded in the long run to the extent that individuals who need to make more effort to become patient are wealthier and enjoy a higher level of utility bin the steady state. The latter result stems from the complementarity between personal capital and deferred consumption. JEL Classification: E13

Implicit tax co-ordination under repeated policy interactions

In the context of a stylised game theoretical framework of capital tax competition, we show that when repeated policy interactions are associated to a systematic punishment of the deviating policymaker, a co-ordinated outcome can be the solution to the non co-operative tax game. This result suggests that explicit forms of policy co-ordination, such as a centralised tax authority, could in fact be largely unnecessary. JEL Classification: E61, H87International Fiscal Issues, Policy Co-ordination

Fiscal sustainability and public debt in an endogenous growth model

This paper investigates fiscal sustainability in an overlapping generations economy with endogenous growth coming from human capital formation through educational spending. We assess how budgetary imbalances affect economic dynamics and the outlook for economic growth, thereby providing a rationale for fiscal rules ensuring sustainability. Our results show that the appropriate response of fiscal policy to temporary shocks is not trivial in the absence of fiscal rules. Fiscal rules allow for a timely reaction, thereby avoiding possibly disruptive fiscal adjustment in the future: the more adjustment is delayed, the larger is its necessary scale. We perform a rough calibration of the model to simulate the effects of a demographic shock (change in the population growth rate) under different fiscal policy scenarios. JEL Classification: E62, H63, H55, O41, E17Fiscal sustainability, overlapping generations, public debt

Intergenerational altruism and neoclassical growth models

This paper surveys intergenerational altruism in neoclassical growth models. It first examines Barro's approach to intergenerational altruism, whereby successive generations are linked by recursive altruistic preferences. Individuals have an altruistic concern only for their children, who in turn also have altruistic feelings for their own children. The conditions under which the Ricardian equivalence (debt neutrality) theorem applies are specified. The effectiveness of fiscal policy is further analysed in the context of an economy populated by heterogeneous families differing with respect to their degree of intergenerational altruism. Other forms of altruism, referred to as ad hoc altruism, are also examined, along with their implications for fiscal policy. JEL Classification: E13, D64, E62, C60altruism, fiscal policy, Neoclassical general aggregative models

Public pensions and growth

This paper investigates the relationship between the size of an unfunded public pension system and economic growth in an overlapping generation economy, in which altruistic parents finance the education of their children and leave bequests. Unlike the existing literature, we model intergenerational altruism by assuming that children's income during adulthood is an argument of parental utility. Unfunded public pensions can promote growth when families face liquidity constraints preventing them from investing optimally in the education of their children. We consider two alternative ways of financing a public pension system, either by levying social contributions in a lump-sum manner or in proportion to labour income. We find that there is no case for unfunded public pensions in economies where bequests are operative. By contrast, there exists a growth-maximising size of the public pension system in economies where bequests are not operative and individuals are sufficiently patient JEL Classification: H55, I20, D91Education, Growth, Public pension

« Mais sans or soupirer que cette vive nue… » Anamorphose intertextuelle et métastase référentielle : d’un sonnet enchâssé

Par l'analyse d'un poème en prose (« la Déclaration foraine ») et du sonnet qui y est enchâssé (« La chevelure »), il s'agit de montrer que le texte mallarméen travaille la fonction déictique de telle façon qu'une radicale anamorphose à la fois ordonne et perturbe le champ référentiel. Ici, comme dans bien d'autres oeuvres de Mallarmé, la figure seconde de l'anamorphose, que l'on peut assimiler au « négatif » hegelien, prend, au niveau du discours, la forme du féminin et ouvre un site intertextuel paradoxal: celui où toute l'envergure du Livre ne se déploie que l'espace et le temps de la lettre.Through an analysis of a prose poem (« la Déclaration foraine ») and the sonnet it comprises (« La chevelure »), the author intends to show that Mallarmé deals with the deictic function in such a way that the referential field is there by both determinated and undone by some kind of anamorphosis. In this poem, as in many others from Mallarmé, the referential anamorphosis embodies a feminine discourse which opens a paradoxical intertext: the Mallarmean «Livre» is there spread in all its expanse by the minute twinkle of the letter