Fiscal Austerity Measures: Spending Cuts vs. Tax Increases

Abstract

We formulate an overlapping-generations model with household heterogeneity and productive and nonproductive government programs to study the macroeconomic and intergenerational welfare effects of risk premium shocks and government debt reductions. We demonstrate that in a small open economy with a high level of debt, a small increase in the risk premium of the interest rate leads to a substantial contraction in output and negative welfare effects. We then quantify the effects of reducing the debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio using a wide range of fiscal austerity measures. Our results indicate trade-offs between short-run contractions and long-run expansions in aggregate output. In the short run, spending-based austerity reforms are worse than tax-based reforms in terms of lost income. However, in the long run, spending-based reforms produce higher output than tax-based reforms. In addition, welfare effects vary significantly across generations, skill groups, and working sectors. The current old and middle-aged generations experience welfare losses, whereas future generations are beneficiaries of the reforms. Show more