Rule-Based Fiscal Stabilization with Consumption Taxes
Can consumption-tax rules substitute for interest-rate policy when nominal rates are fixed? I study this question in a two-agent New Keynesian model with savers and hand-to-mouth households. A rule that adjusts both consumption and labor taxes can replicate the output and inflation paths generated by a Taylor rule: the consumption tax reproduces the intertemporal wedge, while the labor tax neutralizes the induced marginal-cost distortion. When the instrument set is restricted to the consumption tax, this equivalence breaks down. The same tax wedge then affects both aggregate demand and marginal cost, changing determinacy conditions and forcing a trade-off between inflation and output stabilization. Quantitatively, the limited rule can match inflation closely but generates different output, debt, and redistribution dynamics. With capital accumulation, the consumption-tax rule remains a useful but partial substitute without additional instruments reproducing the dynamics from the capital Euler equation.