Defence spending in a neo-Ricardian world

This paper shows that Ricardian equivalence no longer holds once we recognize that government acts as an intermediary between generations in the provision of national defence. Consequently, the level of public debt is positively related to defence spending since this component of government expenditures insures the transferability of bequests, as well as protecting savings. It is shown that defence spending has an adverse effect on both national saving and the saving rate that has not been considered in the economic growth literature. More generally, the pape emphasizes that in developing a positive theory of taxation, the composition of government spending plays an integral role.