Can Deficits Finance Themselves?
We ask how fiscal deficits are financed in environments with two key features: (i) nominal rigidity, and (ii) a violation of Ricardian equivalence due to finite lives or liquidity constraints. In such environments, deficits can contribute to their own financing through two channels: a boom in real economic activity, which expands the tax base; and a surge in inflation, which erodes the real value of nominal government debt. Our main theoretical result establishes that this mechanism becomes more potent as fiscal adjustment is delayed, leading to full self-financing in the limit. In this scenario, the government can run a deficit today, refrain from tax hikes or spending cuts in the future, and still see its debt converge back to its initial level. We further demonstrate that a significant degree of self-financing is achievable when the theory is disciplined by empirical evidence on marginal propensities to consume, nominal rigidities, and the speed of fiscal adjustment.
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Copy CitationGeorge-Marios Angeletos, Chen Lian, and Christian K. Wolf, "Can Deficits Finance Themselves?," NBER Working Paper 31185 (2023), https://doi.org/10.3386/w31185.Download Citation
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Published Versions
George‐Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian & Christian K. Wolf, 2024. "Can Deficits Finance Themselves?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 92(5), pages 1351-1390, September, DOI: 10.3982/ECTA21791. citation courtesy of 
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