Optimal government spending in an economy with imperfectly competitive goods and labor markets

Abstract

This article examines the growth‐ and welfare‐maximizing government spending in an economy that is characterized by market imperfections, namely, unionization in the labor market and monopolistic competition in the goods market. To thoughtfully explore the optimal spending, two distinct scenarios where the government spending is financed by labor/capital income taxes are considered. Our analysis shows that the optimal growth‐maximizing government spending is inconsistent with the welfare‐maximizing government spending. Moreover, the growth‐maximizing/welfare‐maximizing government spending have quite different responses to distinctive market imperfections (markups in the goods and labor markets), particularly in the scenarios with distinctive financing modes. Our numerical study indicates that the growth‐maximizing and welfare‐maximizing government expenditures, in general, are more responsive to the change in the labor market friction than that in the product market friction and the growth‐maximizing government spending is more likely to be lower than the welfare‐maximizing government spending.