Stabilization policy, infrastructure investment, and welfare in a small open economy

Abstract

Using a two-sector neoclassical growth model in an open economy setting with heterogeneous agents, this paper studies the distributional effects and welfare implications of a joint monetary and fiscal policy response to public infrastructure expansion in emerging market economies. The results show that fiscal stabilization policy is critical for achieving fiscal sustainability and price stability. With joint support of monetary and fiscal policy, government infrastructure investment provides significant welfare gains to the economy, and the choice of fiscal instruments has major distributional effects across agents: saving households accrue the highest welfare gains with new bond issuance, while hand-to-mouth consumers are better off when non-distorting taxes are adjusted. These potential tradeoffs in welfare due to households’ differing responses to infrastructure expansion have important implications for policy making.