|
Stefania Albanesi, Roc Armenter
NBER Working Paper No. 13629
Issued in November 2007
NBER Program(s): EFG
PE
---- Abstract -----
This paper studies the long run properties of intertemporal distortions in a broad class of second best economies. Our unified framework encompasses and extends many well known models, such as variants of the Ramsey taxation model with aggregate or idiosyncratic risk, and economies with incentive compatibility constraints due to limited commitment, political economy, self-enforcement or private information, or combinations of these. We identify a sufficient condition that rules out permanent intertemporal distortions: If there exists an allocation that satisfies all constraints and eventually converges to the limiting first best allocation, then intertemporal distortions are temporary in the second best. This result uncovers a common optimality principle linking the intertemporal allocation of resources with the ability to frontload distortions for this broad class of environments. A series of applications illustrates the significance of these findings.
Would you like an annual subscription to NBER Working Papers? Click
here for more information.
You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format
from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.
Information for subscribers and others expecting no-cost downloads
This paper was revised on June 8, 2009 Machine-readable bibliographic record -
MARC,
RIS,
BibTeX
| 
