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關於財政政策的有效性，是否與其融資的方式無關，一直為財政與經濟爭論的焦點。直到Barro於1974年提出"Are government bonds net wealth?"一文中，進一步闡述李嘉圖等質定理的真義，又引起學者的廣泛討論。李嘉圖等質定理的意義是說在政府支出既定之下，政府以課稅或發行公債來籌措財源，對總體經濟影響的效果相同，與融資的方式無關。因為現在若以發行公債代替課稅來融通政府赤字，消費者會察覺未來的租稅負擔將增加，才足以償還公債的利息及本金，因此減稅以用發行公債來融通政府支出，不會改變私人部門的跨期預算限制式，對消費、產出、利率水準及投資不會造成影響。但許多學者認為李嘉圖等質定理所隱含的假設並不切實際，若將其基本假設放鬆，往往導致李嘉圖等質定理不成立。假設的不同會得到不同的結果，所以欲探討李嘉圖等質定理是否成立，可能必須從實證分析著手。 　　本論文是從理論面的探討，並將其原始假加以放鬆，以求李嘉圖等質定理理論之擴充。進而利用台灣總體經濟資料從事實證分析，檢定租稅、政府公債餘額及赤字等經濟變數，對私人消費支出的影響。實證結果顯示李嘉圖等質定理在我國並不成立，表示政府融資的方法對總體經濟會有不同的影響，以課稅或發行公債來融通政府支出，兩者的效果並非全然相等，故在財政政策工具的運用上，必須審慎考慮當前的經濟情勢，以及欲達成的政策目的，而採用不同的融資方法。

Thesis (MTech (Cost and Management Accounting))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019 / This study examined the determinants of savings and investment among low-income households in South Africa. Savings and investment play a significant role in improving living standard of people and also act as important factors for state survival in times of economic crises. The benefits of household savings and investment cannot be easily quantified, especially in achieving economic growth. Despite the numerous benefits, low income household savings and investments remain an issue that has characterised the lives of many low-income households in South African since post-apartheid. The study is based on Non-Ricardian Households (NRH) which comprises medium and high-income households, which are involved in the financial market, participate in buying bonds or stocks, and are classified as saving households. Non-Ricardian households comprise low-income households which largely depend on government welfare benefits for sustenance and are classified as the low savings and hence low-income households. The research used National Income Dynamics Study (NIDS) dataset wave one to five. Four different panel models were analysed in determining the socio-economic characteristics of NRH in South Africa. The panel estimators include Pooled OLS, fixed and random effects methods. The results show that households’ income, household size, household geographical local and household grants among others are major determinant of households’ savings and investment in South Africa. Government grants received by households have positive relationship with savings and negative relationship with investment. This is because the low-income households do not save to invest but save for delay consumption. The results have also showed the likelihood of government grants to household’s crowd out household investment as they over depend on the government for both present and future expenditure. The study recommends that government should create a more enabling environment for Non-Ricardian households to engage in productive activities and to also create more low skills jobs and encourage reduction of birth rate among low-income households.

The paper presents a formal analysis which incorporates returns to transportation into a Ricardian framework to predict trade patterns. The important point to be gained from this analysis is that increasing returns to transportation, coupled with appropriate distances between trading partners can be shown to reverse Ricardian predictions even when there are no international differences in tastes, technology, or factor endowments. Additional gains from trade may emerge from reductions in aggregate delivery costs owing to scale economies. (authors' abstract) / Series: Discussion Papers of the Institute for Economic Geography and GIScience

This appendix contains supplementary material to the paper "A sectoral net lending perspective on Europe". It includes information on the data provenance and processing, the statistical and algebraic framework applied in the study as well as supplementary figures for all countries in the sample. Moreover, it provides robustness checks for the cyclicality analysis of sectoral net lending flows. / Series: Ecological Economic Papers

This study had two main objectives. One objective was to measure the aggregate impact of climate change on income from all agricultural production systems (crop, livestock and mixed) in Africa and to predict future impacts under various climate scenarios. In addition to measuring economic impacts, the study analysed determinants of farmers’ choices between alternative adaptation measures available to African farmers. The study is based on a cross-section survey of over 8000 farming households from 11 countries in east, west, north and southern Africa. To achieve the first objective, the cross-section (Ricardian) approach was used to measure the impact of climate change attributes (rainfall and temperature levels) on income from all agricultural production systems (crop, livestock and mixed) in Africa, controlling for other production factors. Based on empirical estimates from the Ricardian model, the study predicts future impacts under various climate scenarios. In addition to estimating impacts on mixed croplivestock farms, the study also measures and compares impacts on specialised crop and livestock farms. Responses of different production systems are analysed under irrigation and dryland conditions. The response of net revenue from crop and livestock agriculture across various farm types and systems in Africa, to changes in climate variables (i.e. mean rainfall and temperature) is analysed. The analysis controlled for effects of key socio-economic, technology, soil and hydrological factors influencing agricultural production. In addition to measuring impacts on aggregate revenue, the study examined variations in the response of three distinct production systems characterising African agriculture: specialised crop; specialised livestock and mixed crop and livestock systems. Differential impacts of climate change on the studied systems were measured under irrigation and dryland conditions. Results show that net farm revenues are in general negatively affected by warmer and dryer climates. The mixed crop and livestock system predominant in Africa is the most tolerant, whereas specialised crop production is the most vulnerable to warming and lower rainfall. These results have important policy implications, especially in terms of the suitability of the increasing tendency toward mono-cropping strategies for agricultural development in Africa and other parts of the developing world, in the light of expected climate changes. Mixed crop and livestock farming and irrigation offered better adaptation options for farmers against further warming and drying predicted under various future climate scenarios. For the second objective, the study employed a multinomial choice model to analyse determinants of farm-level climate adaptation measures in Africa. Results indicate that specialised crop cultivation (mono-cropping) is the most vulnerable agricultural practice in Africa in the face of climate change. Warming, especially in summer, poses the highest climate risk which tends to indicate switching away from mono-cropping towards the use of irrigation, multiple cropping and integration of livestock activities. Increased precipitation reduces the need for irrigation and will be beneficial to most African farming systems, especially in drier areas. Better access to markets, agricultural extension and credit services, technology and farm assets (such as labour, land and capital) are critical enabling factors to enhance the capacity of African farmers to adapt to climate change. Government policies and investment strategies that support the provision of and access to education, markets, credit, and information on climate and adaptation measures, including suitable technological and institutional mechanisms that facilitate climate adaptation, are therefore required for coping with climate change, particularly among poor resource farmers in the dry areas of Africa. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Agricultural Economics, Extension and Rural Development / unrestricted

This thesis investigates the determinants of private savings in Sweden, covering the time period 1914-2014. The steadily increasing fraction of the elderly, as a percentage of the working age population is a demographic development confronted by almost all industrialized countries nowadays. These conditions will bring further economic pressure on the finance of the social security systems in the years to come, hence affecting private savings. The association between private savings, globalization of capital markets and the release of liquidity constraints in many countries might also be an important determinant. These new conditions have in some cases improved consumer welfare by enabling more intertemporal substitution, the process of maximizing consumer’s utility by allocating resources across time. In this study the savings function is estimated based on several aspects concerning demographic and economic factors, based on the theories; life-cycle hypothesis of saving, precautionary saving theory, permanent income hypothesis and the Ricardian Equivalence theory. This study suggests that the private saving function is sensitive to the inflation rate and the policy implication of the relationship is presented.

O objetivo deste trabalho é estimar a importância relativa de consumidores ricardianos e não-ricardianos na economia brasileira e analisar o impacto de choques nos gastos do governo no consumo privado utilizando um modelo dinâmico estocástico de equilíbrio geral (DSGE). Os parâmetros do modelo são estimados utilizando-se métodos de inferência Bayesiana. Conclui-se que a importância dos consumidores não-ricardianos no Brasil é baixa, próxima de 10% e que sua presença afeta os demais parâmetros do modelo. Em resposta aos choques nos gastos do governo, verifica-se que o modelo falha em conter a queda no consumo privado devido a alta persistência dos choques e que há um apertamento da política monetária visando conter o aumento da inflação. / The purpose of this dissertation is to estimate the share of ricardian and nonricardian consumers in the brazilian economy and analyze the impact of government spending shocks on private consumption using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. The parameters of the model are estimated using bayesian methods. We conclude that the share of non-ricardian consumers in Brazil is low, around 10% and that its presence a ect the other parameters in the model. In response to the government spending shocks, we verify that the model fails to contain the reduction on private consumption due to the high persistence of the shocks. We also verify a monetary policy tightening to contain the rise in in ation caused by the shock.

This thesis consists of three self-contained essays dealing with different aspects of macroeconomics and political Economy. The Relative Price of Investment Goods and Sectoral Contract Dependence I develop a quantitative model to explain the relationship between TFPs at the aggregate and sector levels and contracting institutions across countries. The incomplete contract enforcement induces distortions in the production process which come from the “hold up” problem between a final goods firm and its suppliers. Because investment goods sector is more contract dependent, its productivity suffers more from the distortion. In turn, countries endowed with weaker contract enforcement institutions face higher relative prices of investment goods. A Ricardian Model of the Labor Market with Directed Search I analyze how search friction affects the allocation in a Ricardian model of the labor market. The equilibrium shows that the matching pattern is partially mixed: Some tasks are only performed by skilled workers; some are only performed by unskilled workers; the remaining tasks are performed by both skilled and unskilled workers. The mixed matching pattern implies a mismatch in equilibrium. It turns out that the reason for the mismatch has its roots in search friction. In addition, I show labor market institutions have interesting implications for the unemployment rate and mismatch. A Dynamic Analysis of the Free-rider Problem I argue that special interest groups overcome their free-rider problem thanks to distorted government policy. As policy confers monopoly privileges on a group, it can also preserve and promote group’s organization. The key to sustaining the organization of the group is a dynamic incentive: when distorted policy generates rents for a group, each member of the group wish to make contributions not just to raise their rents today; they want to sustain their cooperation so that they will be able to influence policy in the future.

This dissertation consists of five separate essays (and a short introductory chapter) that analyze the effects of debt policy on private consumption. Essay 1: Government Debt and Private Consumption: Theory and Evidence. The Ricardian equivalence theorem has been widely debated since (at least) the seventies. The theorem states that households should not change their consumption path in response to changed timing of taxes, given the path of government consumption. In this essay, theoretical models giving rise to the equivalence result as well as models predicting deviations from debt neutrality are presented. In general, the Ricardian models are based on unrealistic assumptions, such as infinite horizons, perfect capital markets and lump-sum taxes. The issue of Ricardian equivalence is thus perhaps better viewed as a question concerning to what extent the equivalence hypothesis is a reasonable approximation of the real world. This could only be established by empirical studies. To formulate a test of Ricardian equivalence, it is however vital to extend the standard analysis in deterministic models to stochastic models. In a stochastic model we need to incorporate the fact that agents have to make predictions about future levels of government consumption, and that public debt might be a useful predictor for that purpose. It is therefore necessary that an empirical study distinguishes between debt as a potential source of net wealth, which is the concern of the equivalence proposition, and debt's role as a signal of future levels of government consumption, which is due to the stochastic nature of the world. It is argued that there are few empirical studies that make this distinction, and in case the distinction is made, the evidence is in favor of the Ricardian equivalence proposition, namely that public debt is not net wealth to households. Changing the timing of taxes will therefore not change private consumption. In other words, although the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis is burdened with unrealistic assumptions, it seems (historically) to provide a reasonable approximation of actual data. Essay 2: An Investigation of Ricardian Equivalence in a Common Trends Model. A common trends model for gross national income, private consumption, government consumption and net taxes is estimated on US data. The system has two cointegrating vectors and thus two common stochastic trends, interpreted as a technology trend and a public sector trend. The two temporary shocks are interpreted as a private demand and government financing shock, respectively. Theoretical models suggest that the two cointegrating vectors could be due to the private and public sectors' intertemporal budget constraints. We find two co-integrating vectors, as predicted by no-Ponzi game constraints on the sectors. However, a stronger version of the no-Ponzi game constraint is a solvency condition, which implies particular co-integrating vectors. These cointegration vectors are both rejected for the sample period, indicating that the public sector will not be able to repay its debt if the current policy is maintained. However, the private sector is at the same time accumulating wealth, which is consistent with predictions from a Ricardian model. Further, the equivalence theorem predicts that private consumption should be unaffected by financing shocks. Data, however, indicate that there is a significant short run effect on both income and private consumption from the financing shock, but the effect indicates that increasing taxes is accompanied by increasing private consumption, contrary to both standard Ricardian and Keynesian models. In the theoretical world, this type of pattern could be generated in models with risk averse individuals and uncertainty about future taxes. Essay 3: Risky Taxes, Budget Balance Preserving Spreads and Precautionary Savings. This essay analyzes the effects on consumption from changes in the riskiness of taxes. It starts by reinterpreting the Sandmo [1970] paper on general capital income risk to the case of risky capital taxation. In his framework the concept of a mean preserving spread (MPS) is used for the risk analysis. In connection with risky taxes it is however possible to explicitly connect the tax risk with the government's budget constraint. In this essay the concept of a budget balance preserving spread (BBPS) is developed and used for the analysis of stochastic taxes. The essay is concluded with a comparison of the effects that a MPS and a BBPS has on consumption decisions. It is shown that the comparative statics results for a BBPS could be different from the results obtained with a MPS. Essay 4: Budget Deficits, Tax Risk and Consumption. This essay analyzes the effects of budget deficits on consumption when individual taxes are stochastic. It is shown that the co-movements between budget deficits and private consumption will depend on how risk averse individuals are. In the case of lump-sum taxes, it is sufficient to assume that individuals have a precautionary savings motive to obtain the result that consumption today will decrease with increased disposable income today. Furthermore, if we use a time separable iso-elastic utility funcition, the standard analysis of capital income risk predicts (precautionary) savings to increase with increased risk if the coefficient of relative risk aversion is greater than one. This is no longer sufficient when the risk is due to uncertain capital income taxes. In general, the coefficient must be greater than one to obtain precautionary savings in response to the greater risk implied by a budget deficit. The results in the paper are consistent with Ricardian equivalence only for some specific utility function, but not in general. However, in the same way, the results are consistent with standard Keynesian models that display a positive relation between debt and private consumption only for certain utility functions, and could equally well generate the opposite result for individuals that are enough risk averse or prudent, without changing the expected value of government consumption. In other words, if future taxes are uncertain, increased disposable income in the present period will decrease present consumption, if households are prudent enough. Essay 5: Budget Deficits, Stochastic Population Size and Consumption. This paper analyzes the effects on present consumption of budget deficits under different assumptions regarding demographics. In the first part, birth and death rates are deterministic, and in the second part, birth rates are assumed to be stochastic. In the case of a deterministic population size, an increase in public debt raises present consumption, if the (deterministic) birth rate is greater than zero, while with a zero birth rate we obtain debt neutrality. This is consistent with the results in Blanchard [1985] and Buiter [1988]. However, for the case of stochastic birth rates, it is shown that we can obtain the result that present consumption will decrease when public debt is increased, both when we have a zero expected birth rate, and when the expected population size is assumed to be constant, so that the expected birth rate is positive and equal to the death rate. The explanation is that with an uncertain birth rate, the future tax base is uncertain, which makes per capita taxes uncertain in the future. Shifting taxes to the future thus implies greater uncertainty about future net income, and induces precautionary savings. / Diss. Stockholm : Handelshögsk.