Fiscal cost of demographic transition in Japan

This paper quantifies the fiscal cost of demographic transition that Japan is projected to experience over the next several decades, in a life-cycle model with endogenous saving, consumption, and labor supply in both intensive and extensive margins. Retirement waves of baby-boom generations, combined with a rise in longevity and low fertility rates, raise the old-age dependency ratio to 85% by 2050, the highest among major developed countries, and generate a significant budget imbalance, as the government faces rising costs of public pension and health and long-term care insurance. Preserving the current level of the transfers will require a major increase in taxation. Using consumption taxes to balance the government budget, the tax rate reaches the maximal value of 48% in late 2070s. A pension reform to reduce benefits by 20% results in a peak tax rate of 37%, which can be reduced further to 28% if the retirement age is also gradually raised by 5 years.     

Optimal taxation and intergovernmental transfer in a dynamic model with multiple levels of government

In this paper, we study the optimal choices of the federal income tax, federal transfers, and local taxes in a dynamic model of capital accumulation and with explicit game structures among multiple private agents, multiple local governments, and the federal government. In general, the optimal local property tax is zero if the local property tax is constrained to be nonnegative, whereas the optimal local consumption tax is always positive. When the local consumption tax is chosen optimally, the federal income tax can be either positive or negative. For most reasonable parameter values, our numerical calculations have shown that with a positive local consumption tax there exists a reverse transfer from local governments to the federal government.     

Implications of productive government spending for fiscal policy

The standard assumption in macroeconomics that government spending is unproductive can have substantive implications for tax and spending policy. Productive government spending introduces a positive feedback between the tax rate, the productive capacity of the economy, and tax revenue. We allow marginal tax revenue to be optimally allocated between productive subsidies to human capital and utility-enhancing government consumption and calculate Laffer Curves for the US. Productive government spending yields higher revenue-maximizing tax rates, steeper slopes at low tax rates and higher peaks. The differences are particularly pronounced for the labor-tax Laffer curve. The use of tax revenue is an important determinant of the actual revenue that a tax rate increase generates.     

Must Governments Keep Bad Promises?

Governments can buy votes by mortgaging future tax revenue through promises of state pensions. The Thatcher Government's failure to rescind index-linked pensions for civil servants increases the potential tax burden on future generations. To buy today's votes with tomorrow's money is a promise government is not morally required to keep.     

Nonrenewable Exhaustible Resources and Property Taxation

A bstract .   In this paper, Professor Harriss connects the historic debate about using up nonrenewable resources and its impacts on future generations with the need to help finance government in less disruptive ways. He explains the Georgist program of taxing "economic rents" either directly by a rent tax or indirectly by a severance tax.     

Japan

Our outlook for domestic demand remains reasonably optimistic, notwithstanding recent financial market turmoil. A tight labour market and a pick‐up in wages will bolster consumption and incentivise investment in labour‐saving technology. Meanwhile, firms continue to expand capacity and raise R&D expenditure for new technologies, boosting investment. While growth in 2018 was set back by weather‐related contractions in Q1 and Q3, we expect demand to have rebounded in Q4 and look for GDP to have grown by 0.8% in 2018 as a whole. We expect growth of 1.0% in 2019 but just 0.3% in 2020, with the key drivers being:

• ? Robust labour market to support consumption: as the labour market continues to tighten, we expect household spending to continue to support growth in 2019. We project consumption to accelerate ahead of the scheduled rise of the consumption tax in Q4 2019, before falling back as the tax hike feeds through. However, given the stimulus measures planned by the government to soften the impact of the tax rise, we then expect consumption to show a faster recovery relative to previous consumption tax increases.
• ? Solid investment intentions despite rising uncertainty: business sentiment and investment intentions remain above historical averages and firms continue to expand capacity and increase R&D for new technologies, despite rising uncertainty over the durability of global economic momentum. And although softening recently, machinery orders remain high. Looking ahead, we expect investment growth to lose some momentum as the investment cycle begins to turn and global trade continues to ease.
• ? Low export growth to carry over into 2019: export volume growth has been weak of late, reflecting the softening in external demand. Import volumes have continued to grow at a robust pace, given solid domestic momentum. We expect export growth to remain weak going into 2019, in line with slowing global trade.
• ? Industrial production to continue growing: industrial output has recovered of late, after weather‐related disruption had weighed on growth earlier in 2018, while the PMI has remained stable at 52–53. We expect industrial production to continue growing in line with domestic demand, but slower than in previous years given less buoyant external prospects.
• ? No fiscal consolidation without economic revitalisation: the government is planning measures to support growth after the consumption tax rise in Q4 2019 including a diverse range of policies to incentivise consumption and an expansion of free childcare and education. It has also signalled that it stands ready to provide additional stimulus if needed.
• ? Monetary policy to stay put amid low inflation and falling bond yields: inflation has remained stagnant while 10‐year government bond yields fell into negative territory for the first time in two years, putting an end to speculation about monetary policy tweaks. With the consumption tax rise drawing closer, we do not expect the BoJ to move again any time soon.
• ? Equity sell‐off to prove temporary, but yen strength will persist: we expect current equity weakness to be temporary, but market volatility and more cautious Fed tightening indicate a stronger yen in 2019. Ongoing trade frictions and political attention on the exchange rate will also support the yen, which we see averaging 107 yen per US dollar in 2019.

     

On the role of government in a stochastically growing open economy

The relationship between the size of government, economic growth, and volatility in a small open economy is analyzed. First, we characterize the stochastic equilibrium for a centrally planned economy, contrasting it with a closed economy. The role of government consumption expenditure both as a stabilizing and a destabilizing factor is discussed. The optimal size of government is derived and we find that an open economy will have a larger government if and only if it is a net creditor. Second, the stochastic equilibrium in a decentralized economy is characterized and the optimal tax structure derived. Finally, the role of government production expenditure and its impact on risk is briefly discussed.     

我国大众体育消费:理论探源、制约因素与实施策略

全面激励大众消费是构建以国内大循环为主体、国内国际双循环新发展格局的内在驱动力。本文采用理论分析、逻辑分析方法对当前大众体育消费的理论基础及制约因素进行研究。研究表明:当前,我国体育产品或服务供给力不足、体育消费税制体系激励缺位、微观主体税负沉重、政府调控政策落实不到位等制约了大众体育消费。激励大众体育消费不仅需要政府规制和宏观调控政策的激励,而且需要提升市场机制对体育消费的资源配置作用,实施"科技+体育"和"互联网+体育"深度融合,完善财税激励政策,大力培育体育消费市场,扩大体育消费人群规模,达到助推体育消费高质量发展的政策激励调控目标。     

Factor taxation and labor supply in a dynamic one-sector growth model

This paper studies a class of AK-type growth models with factor income taxes, public capital stock and labor–leisure trade offs. While a higher capital tax rate reduces economic growth in the short run, the long-term growth effect is ambiguous and remains ambiguous even if the level of tax rate is larger than the degree of government externality. A higher labor income tax rate has ambiguous growth effects both in the short and long runs. However, if the intertemporal elasticity of substitution for labor supply is sufficiently small, a higher labor tax rate always lowers economic growth in the long run, despite the existence of productive government taxation.     

State and local tax competition in a spatial model with sales taxes and residential property taxes

This paper presents a theoretical model with a uniformly populated line that is divided into local jurisdictions (and/or states). If one level of government imposes sales and residential property taxes, and if the spatial extent of each taxing jurisdiction is positive and finite, then (in Nash equilibrium) the sales tax rate is less than residential property tax rate, housing consumption is suboptimal, and the public good is underprovided in each jurisdiction. If a very large state (or country) is divided into local jurisdictions, and if both levels of government choose tax rates endogenously, then under some assumptions there is an efficient outcome.     

The new view of the property tax A reformulation

The ‘new view’ of the property tax is reformulated within the context of a model with interjurisdictional competition, endogenous local public services, individuals who are segregated into homogeneous communities according to tastes for local public services, a simple form of land use zoning, and a political or constitutional constraint on the use of head taxes by local governments. Expressions for the ‘profits tax’ and ‘excise tax’ effects of the property tax are derived. The effects of a ‘consumption distortion’ away from government services due to local reluctance to tax mobile capital are also examined.     

地方政府政绩诉求、政府控制与国有企业税负

以我国2004—2012年A股非金融类地方国有上市公司为研究样本,在区分了省级政府与市级政府控制的基础上,实证检验了各级地方政府不同的政绩诉求对国有企业控制程度是否存在差异及该控制程度对国有企业税负的影响。研究发现：地方政府的政绩诉求（包括财政盈余、相对经济增长率、失业率等）显著影响地方政府对国有企业的控制程度,且省级政府更注重相对经济增长率及失业率,市级政府更关注财政盈余水平;三个政绩诉求中相对经济增长率对政府控制的影响最为显著;地方政府对国有企业的控制程度与企业税负显著正相关;与省级政府相比,市级政府控制的国有企业税负更重。这表明,增加地方国有企业税负是市级地方政府实现其政绩诉求的重要途径。     

The Macroeconomic Impact of the IMF Recommended VAT Policy for the Fiji Economy: Evidence From a Cge Model

Value Added Tax (VAT) is a general consumption tax levied on goods and services. In September 2002, in the face of mediocre economic performance, deteriorating government finances and stagnant investment levels - all due to the political coups of 2000 -an increase in VAT was recommended to Fijian policy makers by the IMF as a remedy to Fiji's problems. The Fiji government, without an in depth economy wide repercussions of a VAT policy, welcomed it by announcing a 25% increase in VAT in its 2003 budget. Beginning 1 January 2003 all goods and services were levied a VAT rate of 12.5%. In this paper, we use a computable general equilibrium model to examine the economy wide effects of this VAT policy. We find that while the VAT improves government revenue and brings about a small 0.6% increase in real GDP, it fails to address investment levels. VAT actually leads to a decline in investments and a reduction in real consumption and national welfare. We highlight that large amounts of tax revenue are owed to government. This is three times more than what government will collect from the 25% increase in VAT. In this light, an alternative to VAT is to upgrade government's tax collecting mechanism. From this we deduce that the IMF policy is misdirected.     

中国投资、储蓄与消费之间关系的实证研究

中国经济要保持持续的高速发展,必须平衡好投资、储蓄与消费之间的关系。本文通过Solow黄金储蓄率的测算,发现1995年后中国的储蓄率居高不下。通过Chow Test对消费和GDP之间关系的检验,可以把1981～2008年中国经济分为两个阶段。通过对比发现1995年后,不论是消费倾向,或者是消费的GDP弹性都有较大降幅,而且消费开始不能拉动GDP增长。此外,本文分析了居民储蓄、企业储蓄和政府投资对于经济增长的作用变化,发现住房储蓄促进经济的作用有限,而通过减税提高企业储蓄能够提升经济发展潜力。     

General equilibrium and optimal taxes

It is shown that if subsidies are not excessive, there exists a general competitive equilibrium in the presence of a complex tax structure. Furthermore, under certain continuity assumptions, a tax structure which is optimal from the social point of view can be determined. Procedures maximize quasi-concave after tax profit functions. Consumers have convex budget sets reflect- ing their income from sales and profits minus taxes on fixed income and progressive sales taxes. Their preferences are interdependent, intransitive and incomplete. The government provides public goods and determines the optimal tax regime on the basis of its preferences on the final competitive consumption allocation.     

Policy uncertainty and aggregate fluctuations

This paper estimates the impact on the US economy of four types of uncertainty about (i) government spending, (ii) tax changes, (iii) public debt, and (iv) monetary policy. Uncertainty about government debt has a large and persistent effect on output, consumption, investment, consumer confidence, and business confidence. Uncertainty about tax changes also has detrimental consequences for real activity but the effect of spending and monetary policy uncertainty appears to be small. About 25% of output fluctuations are accounted for by policy uncertainty, with government debt making the largest contribution at longer horizons.     

Corporate tax,financial leverage,and portfolio risk

We examine the theoretical implications of corporate income tax for a risky portfolio in a aggregate-endowment economy. In this model, corporate income tax affects the portfolio risk associated with the rebalancing motive during market clearance. An asset is defined as a portfolio of stocks and bonds whose portfolio weights are similar to financial leverage. Corporate tax can decrease after-tax consumption from dividends (increase leverage) and increase the tax shield that increases dividends (decrease leverage). Changes in dividends are responsible for the correlation between expected dividend growth and consumption growth and, thus, affect stock pricing and returns. Overall, the model is characterized by tax-induced portfolio risk associated with financial leverage.     

Japan

With persistent trade frictions and a significant loss of global growth momentum clouding the external outlook, growth will remain constrained by weak exports and a deceleration in investment spending. Manufacturing, particularly subsectors affected by the ongoing ICT slowdown, has continued to suffer, while the service sector has held up better. However, domestically, the consumption tax hike implemented on 1 October will weigh on consumption spending. We forecast GDP to grow 0.8% in 2019 and just 0.2% in 2020 (due to the impact of the consumption tax rise).     

The heterogeneous impact of taxation on economic development: New insights from a panel cointegration approach

In this paper, we study the role of taxation on long-run income performance. In the theoretical part of the study, we develop a stylized model based on Barro (1990), in which income taxation has two contradictory roles in the standard Solow (1956) setup: on the one hand, taxation appropriates resources that would otherwise be used for physical capital accumulation, and on the other, it is the source of government spending, which is used to support private production. In the empirical part of the study, the impact of consumption tax, personal income tax, corporate profit tax and property tax on income is estimated using the common correlated effects (CCE) panel cointegration approach, which allows for cross-sectional dependencies and provides both panel- and country-specific results. The panel findings for 30 OECD countries for the period of 1995–2016 indicate that only consumption tax has a statistically significant negative effect on long-run income. However, because the type and sign of the tax coefficients are heterogeneous for the country-specific results, we conclude that taxation has heterogeneous effects on income.     

Tax Competition and Revelation of Preferences for Public Expenditure

This paper considers a federal country composed of local jurisdictions that differ in their inhabitants' tastes for public goods, and which finance local public expenditure through a source-based tax on capital income. The taste for public goods is the private information of local governments. The central government seeks an optimal policy, in which grants to local governments are conditioned on local tax rates. The uninformed central government seeks both to allocate capital efficiently among jurisdictions, and to induce jurisdictions to provide an efficient mix of private and public consumption. It is shown that there persist at this constrained optimum both some misallocation of capital and some violation of the Samuelson rule for optimal public good provision in every jurisdiction.