著者

深谷 昌弘

出版者

JAPAN PUBLIC CHOICE SOCIETY

雑誌

公共選択の研究 (ISSN:18846483)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1987, no.9, pp.27-37, 1987

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Is the burden of debt financed public expenditure shifted to future generations, or not? This was the main issue in the so called "public debt burden dispute", which took place during the period from the second half of 1950's to the first half of 1960's. J. M. Buchanan challanged the Keynesian proposition that the choice of financing methods between tax and debt brings about no difference in resource amount available for the privatesector, and that the burden, therefore, arises at the time of the expenditure and could not be shifted to future generations.<BR>The dispute was furious and produced various suggestions. Some of the participants in the dispute maintained that the shifting of the burden does occur and some others said it doesn't. However, it ended up unsettled without any theoretical consolidation. Reviewing the issue at the present time, it seems possible to give a more consistent and reconcilatory understanding to the main controversial points. The use of the framework of inter-temporal consumption model makes this possible. This framework has now become our common analitical tool but it wasn't at that time.<BR>The essential point is that public debt finance gives rise to the transfer of personal disposable wealth from future generations to present generation. This is also a very important point to understand the imprications of recent criticisms against Keynesian policy raised from the two different directions both, the Public Choice Group, the leader of which is J. M. Buchanan, and the Rational Expectationists, one of representatives of which is R. J. Barro.