Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Sep, 2024, Volume 92, Issue 5

Can Deficits Finance Themselves?

https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA21791
p. 1351-1390

George‐Marios Angeletos|Chen Lian|Christian K. Wolf

We ask how fiscal deficits are financed in environments with two key features: (i) nominal rigidity, and (ii) a violation of Ricardian equivalence due to finite lives or liquidity constraints. In such environments, deficits can contribute to their own financing through two channels: a boom in real economic activity, which expands the tax base; and a surge in inflation, which erodes the real value of nominal government debt. Our main theoretical result establishes that this mechanism becomes more potent as fiscal adjustment is delayed, leading to full self‐financing in the limit: if the monetary authority does not lean too heavily against the fiscal stimulus, then the government can run a deficit today, refrain from tax hikes or spending cuts in the future, and still see its debt converge back to its initial level. We further demonstrate that a significant degree of self‐financing is achievable when the theory is disciplined by empirical evidence on marginal propensities to consume, nominal rigidities, the monetary policy reaction, and the speed of fiscal adjustment.


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Supplemental Material

Supplement to "Can Deficits Finance Themselves?"

George-Marios Angeletos, Chen Lian and Christian K. Wolf

This Supplemental Appendix contains further material for the article “Can Deficits Finance Them selves?”. We provide: (i) supplementary discussion of our baseline model and results in Sections 2-4; (ii) details for the extensions considered in Section 5; (iii) additional analysis and alternative results for our quantitative investigation in Section 6. The end of this appendix contains all proofs. Additional materials are provided in Angeletos et al. (2024a).

Any references to equations, figures, tables, assumptions, propositions, lemmas, or sections that are not preceded by “A.”—“D.” refer to the main article.

Supplement to "Can Deficits Finance Themselves?"

George-Marios Angeletos, Chen Lian and Christian K. Wolf

The replication package for this paper is available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.12820141. The Journal checked the data and codes included in the package for their ability to reproduce the results in the paper and approved online appendices.