Capitalists, Workers, and Fiscal Policy : : A Classical Model of Growth and Distribution / / Thomas R. Michl.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP eBook Package Archive 1893-1999
• VerfasserIn: Michl, Thomas R.,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2009]; ©2009
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (320 p.)

Drawing on the work of the classical-Marxian economists and their modern successors, Capitalists, Workers, and Fiscal Policy sets forth a new model of economic growth and distribution, and applies it to two major policy issues: public debt and social security. The book homes in specifically on the problem of fiscal policy, examining the ways that taxation and government spending affect the distribution of wealth and income as well as the rate of economic growth. Thomas Michl’s model shows that public debt has a regressive effect on wealth distribution. It also demonstrates that the accumulation of wealth by public authorities, for example, in the form of a pension reserve such as the U.S. social security trust fund, can have a progressive effect on wealth distribution, both directly (since it represents ownership by the citizenry) and indirectly through its general equilibrium effects on the structure of accumulation. The book’s findings provide an analytical foundation for a macroeconomic policy of using fiscal surpluses to accumulate a public pension reserve fund that serves to effect a progressive redistribution of wealth.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Preface -- Main Symbols -- Part I. From the Short Run to the Long -- 1 Introduction: Toward a Classical Growth Model -- 2 The Nature of the Long Run -- Part II. Long-run Models of Fiscal Policy -- 3 A Two-Class Model -- 4 Saving and the Class Structure -- 5 Debt and Endogenous Growth -- 6 Debt and Exogenous Growth -- 7 Pensions and Endogenous Growth -- 8 Pensions and Exogenous Growth -- 9 Optimal Policy -- Part III. Technical Change and the Production Function -- 10 Fossil Production Function: Theory -- 11 Fossil Production Function: Evidence -- Part IV. Summary -- 12 Fiscal Policy Reconsidered -- References -- Author Index -- Subject Index