Growth, Income Inequality, and Fiscal Policy: What Are the Relevant Trade-offs?

We develop an endogenous growth model with elastic labor supply, in which agents differ in their initial endowments of physical capital. In this context, the growth rate and the distribution of income are jointly determined. We then examine the distributional impact of different ways of financing an investment subsidy. Policies aimed at increasing the growth rate result in a more unequal distribution of pre-tax income, consistent with the positive correlation between income inequality and growth observed in the recent empirical literature. However, there is no conflict between efficiency and equity if inequality is measured in terms of the distribution of welfare.     

Monetary policy and macroeconomic stability in Latin America: The cases of Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico

In 1999, new monetary policy regimes were adopted in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, combining inflation targeting with floating exchange rates. These regime changes have been accompanied by lower volatility in the monetary stance in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, despite higher inflation volatility in Brazil and Colombia. This paper estimates a conventional New Keynesian model for these four countries and shows that: i) the post-1999 regime has been associated with greater responsiveness by the monetary authority to changes in expected inflation in Brazil and Chile, while in Colombia and Mexico monetary policy has become less counter-cyclical, ii) lower interest-rate volatility in the post-1999 period owes more to a benign economic environment than to a change in the policy setting, and iii) the change in the monetary regime has not yet resulted in a reduction in output volatility in these countries.     

Long-term changes in labor supply and taxes: Evidence from OECD countries, 1956-2004

We document large differences in trend changes in hours worked across OECD countries between 1956 and 2004. We assess the extent to which these changes are consistent with the intratemporal first order condition from the neoclassical growth model, augmented with taxes on labor income and consumption expenditures. We find that the model can account for most of the trend changes in hours worked measured in the data. Differences in taxes explain much of the variation in hours worked both over time and across countries.     

Level,slope, curvature of the sovereign yield curve,and fiscal behaviour

We study fiscal behaviour and the sovereign yield curve in the US and Germany. We obtain the latent factors, level, slope and curvature, with the Kalman filter, and use them in a VAR with macro, fiscal and financial stress variables. In the US, fiscal shocks generate an immediate response of the short-end of the yield curve, associated with monetary policy, lasting 6–8 quarters, followed by a response of the whole yield curve lasting 3 years, with an implied elasticity of long-term yields of 80% for the government debt shock and 48% for the budget balance shock. In Germany, fiscal shocks have entailed no significant reactions of the yield curve shape and no response of the monetary policy interest rate, notably after 1999; only in the case of debt shocks there is a short-lived decrease in the medium-end of the yield curve in the following 2nd and 3rd quarters.     

A Tale of Two Growth Engines: Interactive Effects of Monetary Policy and Intellectual Property Rights

How do intellectual property rights that determine the market power of firms influence the growth and welfare effects of monetary policy? To analyze this question, we develop a monetary hybrid endogenous growth model in which R&D and capital accumulation are both engines of long‐run economic growth. We find that monetary expansion hurts economic growth and social welfare by reducing R&D and capital accumulation. Furthermore, a larger market power of firms strengthens these growth and welfare effects of monetary policy through the R&D channel but weakens these effects through the capital‐accumulation channel. Therefore, whether the market power of firms amplifies or mitigates the welfare cost of inflation depends on the relative importance of the two growth engines. Finally, we calibrate the model using data in the United States and the Euro Area to quantitatively evaluate and compare the welfare cost of inflation in these two economies and find that the R&D channel dominates in both economies.     

Two to tangle: Financial development, political instability and economic growth in Argentina

This paper studies the impact of financial liberalization on economic growth. It contributes to this literature by using an innovative econometric methodology and a unique data set of historical series. It presents power ARCH estimates for Argentina for the period from 1896 to 2000. The main results show that the long-run effect of financial liberalization on economic growth is positive while the short-run effect is negative, albeit substantially smaller. Interestingly, we find that financial development affects growth only directly, that is, not through growth volatility.     

The Eurosystem, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the Bank of Japan: Similarities and Differences

The paper provides a systematic comparison of the Eurosystem, the U.S. Federal Reserve, and the Bank of Japan. These monetary authorities exhibit somewhat different status and tasks, which reflect different historical conditions and national characteristics. However, widespread changes in central banking practices in the direction of greater independence and increased transparency, as well as changes in the economic and financial environment over the past 15–20 years, have contributed to reduce the differences among these three world's principal monetary authorities. A comparison based on simple "over-the-counter" policy reaction functions shows no striking differences in terms of monetary policy implementation.     

Convenient prices, currency, and nominal rigidity: Theory with evidence from newspaper prices

Certain items’ prices are often set to simplify and expedite transactions, by coinciding with available monetary units, requiring few pieces of money, or requiring little change. In this sense, these prices are more convenient than other proximate prices. This paper models a firm that explicitly incorporates convenience into its pricing decisions—where convenience is quantified by the number of currency units in a transaction—and illustrates the theoretical behaviors that can arise. Newspaper cover price data empirically support the theory. Across a broader range of goods and services, convenience appears to play a role in effecting above-average nominal price rigidity.     

Money Supply and Capital Accumulation on the Transition Path Revisited

Fischer (1979) and Asako (1983) analyze the sign of the correlation between the growth rate of money and the rate of capital accumulation on the transition path. Both plug a constant relative risk aversion utility (based on a Cobb–Douglas and a Leontief function, respectively) into Sidrauski's model—yet return contrasting results. The present analysis, by using a more general CES utility, presents both of those settings and conclusions as limiting cases and generates economic figures more consistent with reality (e.g., the interest rate elasticity of the money demands derived from those previous works is necessarily 1 and 0, respectively).     

Intangible capital,volatility shock,and the value premium

This paper extends the canonical, neoclassical investment‐based asset‐pricing model through the incorporation of intangible capital and the formulation of a joint productivity distribution with economic uncertainty shocks at the firm level. The distinctive evolutionary dynamics of intangible capital as opposed to that of physical capital mitigate the negative impact of temporary uncertainty shock on production and serve well to explain the value premium with modest assumptions. The value premium is unconditionally positive, but the realized value spread plummets to negative after major transient second‐moment shocks, for example, the Loma Prieta Earthquake and the 9/11 terrorist attack.     

Money and the Welfare Cost of Inflation in an R&D Growth Model

This study analyzes the effects of inflation on R&D and innovation‐driven growth. In the theoretical section, we incorporate money demand into a quality‐ladder model with elastic labor supply and derive the following result. If the elasticity of substitution between consumption and the real money balance is less (greater) than unity, then R&D and the growth rate of output would be decreasing (increasing) in the growth rate of money supply. Quantitatively, decreasing inflation in the U.S. to achieve price stability improves social welfare, and the welfare gain is equivalent to at least 0.5% of annual consumption. In the empirical section, we use cross‐country data to establish a negative and statistically significant relationship between inflation and R&D.     

Finance,Firm Size,and Growth

Although research shows that financial development accelerates aggregate economic growth, economists have not resolved conflicting theoretical predictions and ongoing policy disputes about the cross‐firm distributional effects of financial development. Using cross‐industry, cross‐country data, the results are consistent with the view that financial development exerts a disproportionately positive effect on small firms. These results have implications for understanding the political economy of financial sector reform.     

Broadband penetration,financial development,and economic growth nexus: evidence from the Arab League countries

This paper examines the mutual relationship between broadband penetration, financial development, and economic growth in the 22 Arab League countries for the period between 2001 and 2013. Financial development (represented by broad money supply, claims on the private sector, domestic credit to the private sector, domestic credit provided by the banking sector, market capitalization, turnover ratio, and traded stocks) is assessed both individually, and by a composite index. Our results reveal that there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between broadband penetration, financial development, and economic growth. Additionally, we use a panel vector autoregression model to reveal the nature of Granger causality between the covariates. The most important insight of this study is the presence of bidirectional causality from economic growth to broadband penetration in the long run. In addition, we find that financial development together with broadband penetration Granger-cause economic growth in the long run.     

Inflation and Innovation in a Schumpeterian Economy with North–South Technology Transfer

This study analyzes how inflation affects innovation and international technology transfer via cash‐in‐advance constraints on R&D. We consider a North–South quality‐ladder model that features innovative Northern R&D and adaptive Southern R&D. We find that higher Southern inflation causes a permanent decrease in technology transfer, a permanent increase in the North–South wage gap, and a temporary decrease in the Northern innovation rate. Higher Northern inflation causes a temporary decrease in the Northern innovation rate, a permanent decrease in the North–South wage gap, and ambiguous effects on technology transfer. Finally, we calibrate the model to China–U.S. data to perform a quantitative analysis.     

Principles of Tax Design,Public Policy and Beyond: The Ideas of James Mirrlees, 1936–2018

Sir James Mirrlees, co‐recipient of the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, passed away in August 2018. This article outlines how his work has transformed economists’ understanding of their discipline – from the principles of tax design to the theory of contracts and beyond. By conceiving of policy questions in terms of information asymmetries between governments and taxpayers, Mirrlees demonstrated how to conduct convincing analysis of redistributive objectives together with incentive effects in the design of general tax systems and public policy more broadly. His ability to simplify complex problems in ways that reveal their tractable essence means that his work has yielded insights that have reverberated throughout the discipline. It has also proved highly fruitful for practical policy design.     

Causal nexus between economic growth,banking sector development,stock market development,and other macroeconomic variables: The case of ASEAN countries

This paper examines the relationship between banking sector development, stock market development, economic growth, and four other macroeconomic variables in ASEAN countries for the period 1961–2012. Using principal component analysis for the construction of the development indices and a panel vector auto-regressive model for testing the Granger causalities, this study finds the presence of both unidirectional and bidirectional causality links between these variables. The study contributes to understanding the importance of the interrelationship between the variables and combines the different strands of the literature. It also contributes to the literature by focusing on a group of countries that have not been studied before. One particular policy recommendation is to make the banking sector more accessible for those country's inhabitants that do not have bank accounts. Another policy recommendation is to nurture stock market development, which will facilitate the increased raising of capital for investment purposes to enhance economic growth.     

Human Capital Investment: The Returns from Education and Training to the Individual,the Firm and the Economy

This paper provides a non-technical review of the evidence on the returns to education and training for the individual, the firm and the economy at large. It begins by reviewing the empirical work that has attempted to estimate the true causal effect of education and training on individual earnings, focusing on the recent literature that has attempted to control for potential biases in the estimated returns to education and training. It then moves on to review the literature that has looked at the returns from human capital investments to employers. Lack of suitable data and methodological difficulties have resulted in a paucity of studies that have carried out sound empirical work on this issue. In the final part of the review, we look at the work that has tried to assess the contribution of human capital to national economic growth at the macroeconomic level. This work has generally involved using either a ‘growth accounting’ theoretical framework or ‘new growth’ theories. Although the empirical macroeconomic evidence that accompanies this work does not generally allow one to distinguish between the two approaches, there is a substantial body of evidence on the contribution of education to economic growth.     

Tax Evasion,Investment Shocks,and the Consumption Puzzle: A DSGE Analysis with Financial Frictions

Recent studies identify Marginal Efficiency of Investment (MEI) shocks as important drivers of the business cycle. However, Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models struggle to explain macroeconomic comovements between consumption and the key real variables after a MEI shock. Moreover, engaging in tax evasion practices is often an answer to financial constraints, which have been recognized as important determinants of cyclical fluctuations as well. We use a medium-scale New Keynesian DSGE model, that combines tax evasion with financial frictions, to simulate a MEI shock. We show that entrepreneurial tax evasion can solve the comovement problem to a fair extent.     

金融中介发展、企业家精神与区域经济增长——基于省级面板数据的实证研究

本文利用1999--2010年我国30个省市的面板数据,对金融中介、企业家精神和区域经济增长之间的关系进行了实证研究。实证结果显示：金融中介发展尤其是效率的提高,对经济增长有直接的推动作用,但其增长效应存在地区差异;企业家精神能够促进经济增长,但企业家创新精神的经济增长效应远低于创业精神的经济增长效应;金融中介发展主要通过支持企业家创业活动促进经济增长。     

Capitalisation of R&D and the informativeness of stock prices: Pre- and post-IFRS evidence

We examine whether requiring (IFRS) versus allowing (UK GAAP) conditional capitalisation of development expenditure affects the extent to which capitalisation conveys more information about future earnings, relative to expensing. We show that capitalisation results in current returns incorporating more future earnings information than expensing under UK GAAP but not under IFRS. i.e., the amount of information incorporated into market prices of capitalisers is the same as that from firms expensing R&D under IFRS. This result holds irrespective of a firm’s earnings management incentives or strength of corporate governance for the period under IFRS. We argue that this is because investors experience greater uncertainty regarding the realisation of future economic benefits associated with the development costs capitalised in the post-IFRS period. Consistent with this, we do find a positive association between capitalised R&D and future earnings variability in the post-IFRS period only, as well as short-term positive abnormal returns for capitalisers relative to expensers in the pre-IFRS period only. Overall, these findings suggest that when moving away from a standard that offers an overt option to capitalise or expense, capitalisation comes with greater uncertainty, which is resolved only in the long term.