ABSTRACT

This paper explores the effects of fiscal policy in an economy with search and matching frictions. To this end, a dynamic general-equilibrium model with government sector is calibrated to Bulgarian data (1999–2018). Two regimes are compared and contrasted – the exogenous (observed) vs. optimal policy (Ramsey) case. The focus of the paper is on the relative importance of consumption vs. income taxation, as well as on the provision of utility-enhancing public services. The main findings from the computational experiments performed in the paper are: (i) The optimal steady-state income tax rate is zero; (ii) The benevolent Ramsey planner provides the optimal amount of the utility-enhancing public services, which are now three times lower; (iii) The optimal steady-state consumption tax needed to finance the optimal level of government spending is $18.3\mathrm{\%}$, slightly lower than the rate in the exogenous policy case.

摘要

本文探讨了财政政策在具有搜索和匹配摩擦的经济体中的影响。为此，政府部门的动态一般均衡模型根据保加利亚数据（1999-2018）进行校准。比较和对比了两种制度——外生（观察到的）与最优政策（拉姆齐）的情况。本文的重点是消费税与所得税的相对重要性，以及提供提高公用事业的公共服务。论文中进行的计算实验的主要发现是： (i) 最优稳态所得税税率为零；(ii) 仁慈的 Ramsey 规划者提供了最佳数量的公共服务，现在减少了三倍；(iii) 为政府支出的最优水平提供资金所需的最优稳态消费税是$18.3\mathrm{\%}$，略低于外生政策情况下的利率。