Growth, Distribution, Stability and Government Budget Surplus: The Extended Cambridge Equation Revisited

Abstract

In the late 80’s Pasinetti showed that the essential feature of the Cambridge Equation is preserved in his model of growth and income distribution with balanced or unbalanced budget. He did not work out both the share of incomes and the conditions of stability and was not formally concerned with a permanent budget surplus. The present paper deals with the case of a closed economy in which, besides direct taxation, indirect taxation on government’s own expenditures is explicitly considered and the government saves permanently at a given rate. The extended Cambridge Equation and the share of profits are obtained. It is also shown that the stability result requires additional assumptions. Boundary conditions are introduced and the long-run local stability result is attained, thus corroborating the generality and robustness of Pasinetti’s original insight.Budget Surplus, Cambridge Equation, Growth, Distribution, Stability