Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/159563 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
Quaderni - Working Paper DSE No. 722
Publisher: 
Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche (DSE), Bologna
Abstract: 
In this paper we derive analytic implicit form conditions for the qualitative analysis of government spending multipliers and the optimal level of government spending in presence of non-separability between private and public components of aggregate demand. Using the simplest neo-classical flexible price model with no capital accumulation, we show that Edgeworth dependence is not a suitable condition to utomatically assess the signs of the consumption and income multipliers, for which a more complex analysis must be carried out. We propose a detailed investigation of the form and the characteristics of the involved utility functions, which are crucial to such evaluation. We also show that if Edgeworth complementarity is strong enough, a public spending stimulus can raise at the same time private consumption and real activity. In order to reconcile our general framework with existing literature, we discuss recent examples of non-separable functional forms from the standpoint of our results, and argue that their consistency relies on specific assumptions about steady- state points.
JEL: 
E20
H50
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by-nc Logo
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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