Budget Deficits and Economic Growth

January 8, 2003This paper investigates the sustainability and welfare effects of government budget deficits by using a simple endogenous growth model with overlapping generations. It is shown that, if the initial volume of government debt and the ratio of primary budget deficits to GDP are not large, then there can exist two steady-growth equilibria, one of which is associated with a higher growth rate and the other of which is associated with a lower growth rate. It is also shown that changes in government spending cannot be Pareto improving although they affect the long-run growth rate and each generation's utility.科学研究費補助金（特定領域研究） = Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Priority Areas26, [8] p