| Autor: |
John S. Irons, Dale W. Henderson, Sebastian Thomas, Stephen W. Salant |
| Rok vydání: |
2007 |
| Předmět: |
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| Zdroj: |
Review of Financial Economics. 16:235-258 |
| ISSN: |
1058-3300 |
| DOI: |
10.1016/j.rfe.2006.01.001 |
| Popis: |
Additional gold can be made available either by mining at high cost (approximately $250 per ounce in 1997 dollars) or by mobilizing government stocks at zero cost. Governments own massive above-ground stocks but loan out only a small percentage of these stocks. Making all government gold available for private uses immediately through some combination of sales and loans maximizes total welfare from private uses, a consequence of the first welfare theorem. We simulate a calibrated version of our model to quantify the effects of liquidating government stocks on alternative dates. If governments sell immediately rather than never, total welfare increases by $340 billion; if they make an unanticipated sale in 20 years, $105 billion of that amount is lost. By depressing prices, such sales benefit depletion and service users but injure private owners of stocks above and below-ground. However, the injury to above-ground stock owners is more than offset by the benefits to service users—often the same individuals. Mine owners would be the principal losers; however, they could be compensated (twice over) from government sales revenue without any need for tax increases. |
| Databáze: |
OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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Full Text from ScienceDirect