Evaluating fiscal policy reforms using the fiscal frontier
本文构建了“财政前沿”概念，用于衡量给定福利成本下可持续的最大政府债务水平，并评估了拉弗曲线计算、资本税削减和财政整合等改革方案，发现传统拉弗曲线低估了美国可持续债务，而资本税改革可抵消债务削减的高成本。
We develop a Fiscal Frontier which traces out the maximum government debt level that can be sustained at a given welfare cost. Through duality, the intertemporal policy mix underpinning the Frontier mirrors standard Ramsey policy and defines an upper limit on the welfare gains that can be achieved by any fiscal reform. The Frontier is then used to evaluate a variety of fiscal reforms: (1) one-off changes in tax instruments considered in Laffer curve calculations, (2) a gradual reduction in capital taxation proposed by Lucas (1990), and (3) fiscal consolidation strategies akin to those considered by the Congressional Budget Office. Conventional Laffer curve calculations significantly under-estimate the sustainable debt of the US. The desirable pace of capital tax abolition has slowed since the 1970s, but the reform remains close to the Frontier. Achieving debt reduction targets considered by the Congressional Budget Office is typically very costly, especially when the fiscal consolidation is large and must be achieved quickly, but a simultaneous capital tax reform can more than offset those costs in all cases we consider.