Concepts and Measures of Federal Deficits and Debt and Their Impact on Economic Activity

This paper introduces extensions of the National Income Accounts to include a consistent treatment of consumer durables and government capital in the measurement of consumption and income, and explicitly tests alternative propositions concerning the effects of government financial policy on real economic activity. The paper discusses adjustments to various measures of the budget deficit, national debt, or government "net worth". These include separating government tangible investment from consumption, accounting for government financial assets, inflation adjustments, etc. The most important results estimate consumption functions in which government consumption is subtracted from income. I take this to be more in the spirit of the Ricardian equivalence hypothesis, asking: Given the level of government consumption, would a shift from tax to debt finance alter consumption? The various measures of the deficit produce virtually identical results in their impact on consumption: a tax cut^holding government consumption constant, unambiguously increases consumption substantially, about 40 cents on the dollar. Estimating separate coefficients on private wealth, net of government bonds and o