Government Spending versus Tax Cuts: How Best to Stimulate Growth?

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Introduction

In economics, the fiscal multiplier is the ratio of a change in GDP due to change in government spending. When this multiplier exceeds one, the enhanced effect on GDP is called the multiplier effect. The mechanism that can give rise to a multiplier effect is that an initial incremental amount of spending can lead to increased consumption, increasing income further and hence further increasing consumption, etc., resulting in an overall increase in GDP greater than the increase in government spending.

An increase in government spending or a reduction in net taxes is always aimed at increasing aggregate output (Y). The main aim is to stimulate the economy but this may lead to many problem such as inflations, budget deficit because of needed debt to finance the deficit. Before finding out which is the better options for stimulation of any economy we need to first be clear with the concept of multiplier.

In the following report we have first tried to clear the concept of the multiplier then carried on with explaining various theoretical aspect of tax multiplier, government spending multiplier and planned investment multiplier. Then we have tried to compare the change in expenditure and change in GDP in Indian economy by providing data which was extracted through a secondary source.

After analyzing the data and the theory, we have provided our conclusion weather tax cut is better for the stimulation of growth or Government spending is? This report explains the big macroeconomic debates of the present times. It seeks to explore the debate within fiscal policy itself between tax cuts and government spending. We have tried to explain the argument through some theories and through some data collected from Indian econ...

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...the recipients of these tax cuts may not spend the money. The tax cut may though increase the wealth of recipients but they may not spend money due to low marginal propensity to consume. The recipient of the tax cut may decide to save the extra amount of money rather than spending it. Without the expenditure there will be no income generated so this may not simulate the growth of entire economy.

In our opinion government spending is better than tax cuts. Government spending increases the employment as well as the income of the people of the country, though tax cut only increases the wealth of the people who may not spend the extra money earned and help in the growth of the economy.

References:

http://www.indiastat.com/default.aspx

http://econospeak.blogspot.in/2009/12/fiscal-stimulus-spending-increases-v.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_multiplier

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