Portfolio and welfare consequences of debt market dominance

The ability to issue debt that pays in units of the domestic good leads a country to accumulate a large and negative net foreign asset position while maintaining a positive position in equity. This debt market advantage also helps to explain the weak relationship between the real exchange rate and relative consumption. Our stylized model matches the key facts about the U.S. international portfolio, the U.S. real exchange rate, and explains nearly 50% of the observed variation in the valuation effects. We find that taxing bond market transactions increases the volatility of the exchange rate, capital flows and allocations. In contrast, taxing equity positions stabilizes the exchange rate and capital flows while having little impact on the allocation. Lastly, the paper describes a global solution method for portfolio problems under incomplete markets.     

Estimating the impact of monetary policy on income inequality in China

The article estimates the impact of monetary policy on income inequality in China. The empirical time series analysis finds that a battery of monetary indicators and the change in the unemployment rate lead to increases in the Gini coefficient. But only unemployment is statistically significant. The lack of significance of the monetary indicators is robust to running different econometric models using nominal output as an alternative to unemployment. Unemployment’s impact on income inequality is robust to considering a fiscal policy proxy alongside inflation in the benchmark equation.     

Housing policy and the progressivity of income taxation

Most countries have tax provisions and subsidies to promote homeownership. These provisions generate an asymmetry in the tax treatment of owner- and rental-occupied housing, which affects the incentives to supply tenant-occupied housing. This paper analyzes the quantitative importance of the interaction of these provisions with the progressivity of income taxation in the context of an overlapping generations model with housing and rental markets. The model replicates the key facts observed in the economy, as well as distributional patterns of ownership, house size, and landlord behavior. The model suggests that the progressivity of income taxation can amplify or mitigate the effects of the asymmetries with important implications for housing tenure, housing consumption, portfolio reallocations, and welfare that differ from those reported in the literature.     

Inter-industry wage differentials revisited: Wage volatility and the option value of mobility

Analysis of data from the PSID reveals that idiosyncratic wage volatility varies inversely with inter-industry wage differentials and is positively correlated with both returns to industry tenure and rates of inter-industry mobility. An incomplete markets life cycle model in which inter-industry mobility decisions and wage differentials are endogenously determined in equilibrium is then developed and shown to be capable of rationalizing these features of the data. In the model, the ability of worker to switch industries generates option value that is large enough to offset the standard risk premium that workers demand for exposure to excess wage volatility.     

我国西部大开发税收政策评价及调整方向

本文在对西部大开发现有政策进行归纳总结和效果评价的基础上,认为税收政策对促进西部经济发展起到了重要支撑作用,但由于优惠政策存在结构性问题,使得西部地区企业税负较重的局面并未改变,政策促进效果不甚明显。建议进一步延长税收优惠时限,对税收优惠政策进行结构性调整,实行直接优惠和间接优惠并重的方式,并建立对关键区域、问题区域的特别税收优惠制度。     

从欧盟国家的单一税改革看税收政策的有效性

本文首先对税收政策及其有效性的标准进行了诠释;其次从单一税改革的实践及其成就两个方面介绍了欧盟国家的单一税改革;再次总结了单一税改革的特点并对其税收的有效性进行了评价;最后得出了单一税对我国进行税制改革的一些启示。     

Fiscal incentives, corporate structure and financial aspects of treasury management operations

This paper presents evidence that tax policy affects corporate structure and intra-group financial flows, using a data base of Irish registered firms. How MNC's corporate structure and financial flows react to tax policy is complex. Fiscal incentives play a key role in Irish industrial policy. The paper examines certain financial characteristics of financial subsidiaries (those managing group treasury functions) in Ireland. These characteristics are a tax haven connection, high ratios of revenues to pre-tax profits (in some cases greater than 100%), high intra-group borrowing or lending, large gross assets (in excess of €500 million) and low or zero employment. While these firms pay corporation tax in Ireland (at reduced rates), there is considerable loss to other exchequers. The paper concludes that such tax haven type activities are unlikely to remain a viable part of future industrial policy in Ireland.     

A general framework for the derivation of asset price bounds: an application to stochastic volatility option models

We present a generalization of Cochrane and Saá-Requejo’s good-deal bounds which allows to include in a flexible way the implications of a given stochastic discount factor model. Furthermore, a useful application to stochastic volatility models of option pricing is provided where closed-form solutions for the bounds are obtained. A calibration exercise demonstrates that our benchmark good-deal pricing results in much tighter bounds. Finally, a discussion of methodological and economic issues is also provided.      

促进文化创意产业发展的税收政策有效性评价研究

构建评价文化创意产业税收政策有效性指标体系,运用模糊灰色关联模型考量促进文化创意产业发展的税收政策实施效果.结果显示:促进文化创意产业发展的税收政策在促进产业组织调整、产业结构升级方面效果不明显,优化产业布局作用有限.因此,强化税收政策的导向性,做到税收政策普惠与特惠的有机结合,尤其要结合各地区的综合条件建立满足地方发展需求的税收政策体系,以实现税收政策的合理布局,是提高文化创意产业税收政策有效性的关键所在.     

The role of political elites in income tax system design and tax fairness

Given the importance of fairness in the public acceptance of tax systems (Mirrlees et al., 2011), understanding the role of political elites in the tax design process and how this impacts fairness is important. In this paper, we use an interpretative approach to examine the design and ultimate rejection of the Kansas tax policy experiment that ran from May 2012 to June 2017. The central design element of this experiment was the fundamental disruption of the long-standing principle of horizontal equity (fairness), in which non-wage business income was relieved of income tax, while wage income was taxed. By interpreting this experiment through a Bourdieusian lens, we identify five key themes that are helpful in understanding income tax design, tax fairness, and the role played by political elites. Overall, we contribute to the literature by highlighting the way in which cultural capital may be used by political elites to reformulate groups of taxpayers in order to justify unequal treatment of equal taxpayers, which represents a violation of the notion of horizontal equity (fairness). We also highlight that although such violations of fairness in income tax system design may be sustainable in the short run, over the longer term, notions of fairness are so deeply embedded in the habitus of individual taxpayers that a return to the status quo is likely.     

Finance and inequality: The distributional impacts of bank credit rationing

We analyze reductions in bank credit using a natural experiment where unprecedented flooding in Pakistan differentially affected banks that were more exposed to the floods. Using a unique data set that covers the universe of consumer loans in Pakistan and this exogenous shock to bank funding, we find two key results. First, following an increase in their funding costs, banks disproportionately reduce credit to borrowers with little education, little credit history, and seasonal occupations. Second, the credit reduction is not compensated by relatively more lending by less-affected banks. The empirical evidence suggests that a reduction in bank monitoring incentives caused the large relative decreases in lending to these borrowers.     

The effects of standardized tax rates,average tax rates,and the distribution of income on tax progressivity

This study examines the changes in US individual income tax progressivity over the 1986–2003 period using the indexes developed by [Kakwani, N.C., 1976. Measurement of tax progressivity: An international comparison. Economic Journal 87(March), 71–80]. Although progressivity over this time frame has generally been studied in the literature, we provide additional insights by decomposing the changes in index values to account for the effects of concurrent changes in the standardized tax rates, average tax rates, and the income distribution. The decomposition should prove to be particularly useful when different summary indexes lead to conflicting conclusions about progressivity changes, as is often the case. From a policy standpoint, we show that it is the standardized tax rates, a derivative of the legislated tax rates, which need to be monitored and managed to offset the negative progressivity effects of increasing before-tax income inequality.     

The tax benefit of income smoothing

A worker can reduce tax liability by contributing to a private pension plan when marginal tax rates are high and withdraw pension benefits when marginal tax rates are low. We quantify the tax benefit of income smoothing through the private retirement system and find that it is negligible. This conclusion is important to households, investment advisers, tax policymakers, and scholars engaged in financial retirement planning.     

纳税人税收遵从行为博弈分析

创建基于行为博弈的税收遵从均衡模型,将处于相同税收境况的纳税人视为一个群体,则个体纳税人选择税收遵从策略从纳税人群体角度来看就是以一定的概率选择该种策略。面对正常税务检查与严格税务检查并存的环境,纳税人税收遵从博弈稳定均衡策略形成不但取决于税制的特性,而且依赖于其他纳税人的税收遵从决策。依据税收遵从博弈均衡的形成机理,提出建立我国税收遵从激励监督机制的对策。     

Modelling the Distributional Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis*

The COVID-19 emergency has had a dramatic impact on market incomes and income-support policies. The lack of timely available data constrains the estimation of the scale and direction of recent changes in the income distribution, which in turn constrains policymakers seeking to monitor such developments. We overcome the lack of data by proposing a dynamic calibrated microsimulation approach to generate counterfactual income distributions as a function of more timely external data than are available in dated income surveys. We combine nowcasting methods using publicly available data and a household income generation model to perform the first calibrated simulation based upon actual data, aiming to assess the distributional implications of the COVID-19 crisis in Ireland. Overall, we find that the crisis had an equalizing real-time effect for both gross and disposable incomes, notwithstanding the significant hardship experienced by many households.     

Sources of Fluctuations in Islamic,U.S., EU,and Asia Equity Markets: The Roles of Economic Uncertainty,Interest Rates,and Stock Indexes

This article analyzes the economic and financial sources of fluctuations among the U.S. federal funds rates, the U.S. economic policy uncertainty, and the indices of the U.S., European, Asian, and Islamic stock markets. The impulse response analysis shows that the U.S. economic policy uncertainty shocks have significant and negative effects unanimously on the U.S., European, Asian, and Islamic stock markets. A contractionary monetary policy shock, in terms of a higher federal funds rate, has also a statistically significant and negative effect on all of the stock markets. The variance decomposition results indicate that the Islamic stock index is mainly affected by the U.S. stock index shock, thus negating its dichotomy hypothesis. The U.S. economic uncertainty shock explains an important portion of fluctuations for all four stock indices. The degree of synchronization between the EU stock market and other markets has weakened after the U.S. financial crisis.     

Assessing the relevance of an information source to trading from an adaptive-markets hypothesis perspective

I propose a framework motivated by the Adaptive Markets Hypothesis (AMH) to analyze the relevance of a specific information source for the trading of a given security. To illustrate the applicability and advantages of this methodology, I explore the extent to which the financial statement (FS) is relevant for Credit Default Swap (CDS) trading. Specifically, I adopt a Bayesian Model Averaging approach to examine properties of the accounting metrics that enter the implied trading heuristics of the market participants. Hypothesis-testing is conducted on various horizons around the announcement dates of corporate results. The diversity of trading rules and the shift in the heuristics mix that occurred after 2008 support the AMH perspective. Overall, results show that there is a significant component of profit-motivated trading in the CDS market that relies on financial statement information, even after controlling for information transmission from alternative trading forums. Out of sample trading strategies confirm the robustness the main findings.     

宏观审慎管理理论与政策

加强宏观审慎管理已成为后危机时代金融监管改革的重要趋势。国内外的学者对宏观审慎管理的概念、目标、工具等问题进行了深入的研究,但总体看来尚没有形成系统的理论。在借鉴动态随机一般均衡模型的基础上,我们构建了宏观审慎管理政策的模型框架,分析了资本要求和贷款价值比率工具对金融市场的影响,同时一定程度上厘清了宏观审慎管理政策与货币政策的差别。研究结果表明,宏观审慎管理政策与货币政策在目标上具有一定意义上的一致性。单一的政策很可能会损害实体经济,在实践中必须进行动态平衡。因此,必须转变监管理念,着手建立宏观审慎管理框架,发挥中央银行在宏观审慎管理中的核心作用,加强宏观审慎管理政策与包括货币政策在内的各项政策的协调与配合。     

Disaggregated oil shocks and stock-market tail risks: Evidence from a panel of 48 economics

We analyse the impact of oil supply, global economic activity, oil-specific consumption demand, and oil-inventory demand shocks on equity-market tail risks of a panel of 48 developed and emerging economies over the monthly period from 1975:01 to 2017:12. We find that, oil supply, global economic activity, and oil-inventory demand shocks reduce tail risks, but oil-specific consumption demand shock increases tail risks, with these effects stronger in oil-exporting economies. Our results have important implications for investors and policymakers.     

Some unpleasant properties of loglinearized solutions when the nominal rate is zero

Does fiscal policy have large and qualitatively different effects on the economy when the nominal interest rate is zero? An emerging consensus in the New Keynesian (NK) literature is that the answer to this question is yes. Evidence presented here suggests that the NK model׳s implications for fiscal policy at the zero bound may not be all that different from its implications for policy away from it. For a range of empirically relevant parameterizations, employment increases when the labor tax rate is cut and the government purchase multiplier is less than 1.05.