A modern history of fiscal prudence and profligacy

Drawing on a newly collected historical dataset of fiscal stocks and flows, we analyze the determinants of variation, both across countries and over time, in how fiscal policy responds to increases in the government debt-to-GDP ratio. The fiscal data comprise revenues, primary expenditures, interest bill, and government debt for 55 countries for up to two hundred years. The policy response (increase in the primary fiscal balance in response to debt increases) is found to be significantly weaker when sovereign borrowing costs are low, inflation is high, and potential economic growth worsens unexpectedly. These results are robust to political factors.     

Unemployment fiscal multipliers

We estimate the effects of fiscal policy on the labor market in US data. An increase in government spending of 1 percent of GDP generates output and unemployment multipliers, respectively, of about 1.2 percent (at one year) and 0.6 percentage points (at the peak). Each percentage point increase in GDP produces an increase in employment of about 1.3 million jobs. Total hours, employment and the job finding probability all rise, whereas the separation rate falls. A standard neoclassical model augmented with search and matching frictions in the labor market largely fails in reproducing the size of the output multiplier whereas it can produce a realistic unemployment multiplier but only under a special parameterization. Extending the model to strengthen the complementarity in preferences, to include unemployment benefits, real wage rigidity and/or debt financing with distortionary taxation only worsens the picture. New Keynesian features only marginally magnify the size of the multipliers. When complementarity is coupled with price stickiness, however, the magnification effect can be large.     

我国财政风险分析:体制、效率、政策角度

财政运行困难是我国财政体制的一大痼疾，而与之相伴的财政风险危害更大。本试图从财政收入机制、财政支出效率、财政政策操作三个角度来分析形成我国财政风险的深层次原因，并提出了防范财政风险的政策、制度建议。     

Environmental policy,pollution, unemployment,and endogenous growth

The paper develops a model of endogenous economic growth with pollution externalities and a labor market distorted by union monopoly power and by taxes and transfers. We study the optimal second-best pollution tax and abatement policy and find that a shift toward greener preferences will tend to reduce unemployment, although it will hamper growth. We also find that greater labor-market distortions call for higher pollution tax rates. Finally, we show that a switch from quantity control of pollution combined with grandfathering of pollution rights to regulation via emission charges has the potential to raise employment, growth, and welfere without damaging the environment.     

Cyclical fiscal policy,credit constraints,and industry growth

What are the effects of cyclical fiscal policy on industry growth? We show that industries with a relatively heavier reliance on external finance or lower asset tangibility tend to grow faster (in terms of both value added and of labor productivity growth) in countries that implement fiscal policies that are more countercyclical. We reach this conclusion using Rajan and Zingales׳s (1998) difference-in-difference methodology on a panel data sample of manufacturing industries across 15 OECD countries over the period 1980–2005.     

促进经济结构调整的财税政策研究

目前,我国经济结构存在的问题主要表现在投资、消费和出口不平衡,三次产业及子产业结构不合理,收入分配结构不合理等。这些结构性问题互为因果,相互交织在一起。本文认为,短期内解决结构性问题的重要思路应当是调整收入分配、促进产业结构升级,充分发挥财税政策工具对解决上述问题的作用。     

Fiscal policy and fiscal reconstruction in Japan

This paper investigates the macroeconomic effect of fiscal policy and the fiscal reconstruction movement in Japan. I first summarize Japanese fiscal policy in the recent years and discuss sustainability of government deficits. Then, I investigate the macroeconomic effect of Japanese fiscal policy and evaluate the plausibility of the Keynesian and non-Keynesian effects. I also analyze political constraints in the fiscal reconstruction attempts and the possibility of crowding-in effect of fiscal reform. Finally, I discuss some measures for the successful fiscal reconstruction reform in the near future. JEL Code H30 · H60     

A comparison of nominal and indexed debt under fiscal constraints

This paper makes a welfare comparison between the issuance of price-indexed and nominal public debt in the presence of fiscal constraints, viz. a debt constraint, a deficit constraint and a combination of both. Distortionary taxes or public consumption are regulated to avoid the violation of the relevant fiscal constraint(s). Under a debt constraint indexed debt is generally preferred, while under a deficit constraint the results are more mixed. Introducing inflation persistence and raising the maturity of the debt tend to increase the magnitude of the welfare differences between the two types of debt. Welfare differences are further affected by the degree to which public consumption and tax revenues are indexed to actual versus structural nominal GDP.     

Accrual accounting and Australian fiscal policy

Australian governments have recently moved from cash accounting to accrual accounting. Accrual accounting has been accompanied at the national government level by the introduction of a new key fiscal policy measure: the ‘fiscal balance’. This paper explains and evaluates this new fiscal measure. It concludes that, given the present fiscal policy of the Australian government, fiscal balance is a superior fiscal policy measure to the ‘cash’ budget balance measure which it replaced. However, from the alternative ‘golden rule’ policy standpoint, fiscal balance is not a meaningful fiscal policy measure — although its stock counterpart, net financial liabilities, certainly is.     

2007年财政政策特点分析与2008年财政政策功能定位

2007年上半年,我国财政运行态势令人满意,财政收入有了明显的增长,财政支出有了可靠的支撑,本文在对2007年的财政运行情况进行分析的基础上,提出2008年财政政策的功能定律,并提出了有关财政政策的一些具体问题。     

Optimal taxation and redistribution in an OLG model with unemployment

This paper concerns redistribution via nonlinear income taxation in an overlapping generations model with two ability-types. We assume that the wage rates are determined by bargaining between unions and firms, meaning that the equilibrium is characterized by involuntary unemployment. We show that the policy instruments that are used to calculate the marginal labor income tax rate for each ability-type give rise to intertemporal tax base effects. In addition, since the relationship between the employment and the capital stock implies intertemporal production inefficiency at the second best optimum, imperfect competition in the labor market may itself justify capital income taxation.      

李嘉图等价定理的理论回顾和实证研究

1998年以来，我国政府实施了积极的财政政策。这种通过增发国债增加政府支出的积极财政政策能否有效地扩大总需求，即财政政策是否有效，不仅是宏观经济理论的一个核心问题，也是我国今后很长时期内制定宏观经济政策时必须考虑的问题。本文主要对李嘉图等价定理进行回顾性理论分析，并在理论上论证该定理站不住脚，最后通过计量经济分析证明该定理不适用于我国。本文的结论是：税收和国债在我国并非等价，通过增发国债增加政府支出的积极财政政策是有效的。     

财政分权框架下的最优税收结构

本文在财政分权的框架下研究中央政府和地方政府的最优税收结构,证明了均衡时地方政府的最优税收是征收消费税;通过数值模拟比较中央政府征收消费税和资本税时所对应的均衡产出和社会福利,发现中央政府的最优税收也是征收消费税。此时由地方政府向中央政府进行转移支付,中央政府的消费税与地方政府的消费税之间存在固定的比例关系。     

财政竞争、地方政府政策选择与经济增长——基于中国省际面板数据的实证研究

分税制背景下财政分权体制使得地方政府之间存在着激烈的财政竞争,其典型特征表现为税负、公共投入支出和公共服务支出三种政策工具之间的策略互动,从而影响各地区的经济增长。基于1997～2009年中国省级面板数据,通过估计交互项系数的符号,结果发现:地方政府的三种政策工具是相辅相成的;交互项的作用也存在着地区的差异;税负、公共服务支出和公共投入支出对经济增长有着不同的边际影响。     

A structural decomposition of the U.S. trade balance: Productivity, demographics and fiscal policy

The US external deficits have been the most striking manifestation of global imbalances. This paper investigates the contribution of productivity growth, demographics and fiscal policy in accounting for the evolution of the US external imbalances against industrialized countries during the last three decades. Productivity growth plays a dominant role. Demographics explain a non-negligible and nearly permanent component of the US trade deficit. Furthermore, the international demographic transition is crucial for large US external imbalances to be consistent with the persistent decline of world real interest rates observed in the data. Fiscal policy is of minor importance.     

Intergenerational risk sharing and fiscal policy

Risk-sharing implications of alternative fiscal policies are compared in a stochastic production economy with overlapping generations. Ex ante efficiency is shown to be achievable with optimal transfers, regardless of distributional concerns. For CRRA preferences, stylized real-world policies (notably safe debt and safe pensions) are found inefficient in the direction of imposing not enough productivity risk on retirees and too much on future generations. Safe transfers can be rationalized as efficient if preferences display age-increasing risk aversion, such as habit formation. The ubiquity of safe transfers suggests that governments treat the young as more risk tolerant than older cohorts.     

A life-cycle model of unemployment and disability insurance

A general equilibrium life-cycle model is developed, in which individuals choose a sequence of saving and labor supply faced with search frictions and uncertainty in longevity, health status and medical expenditures. Unemployed individuals decide whether to apply for disability insurance (DI) benefits if eligible. We investigate the effects of cash transfer and in-kind Medicare component of the DI system on the life-cycle employment. Without Medicare benefits, DI coverage could fall significantly. We also study how DI interacts with reforms of Social Security and Medicare and find that DI enrollment amplifies the effects of reforms.     

The European economy at the cross roads: Structural reforms, fiscal constraints, and the Lisbon Agenda

This paper studies the incentives to sustain and extend a monetary union under alternative assumptions about the extent of market reform within the union and accession countries. Lack of labour mobility, or wage/price flexibility, or fiscal reform, brings costs for both new entrants and in the existing union. Countries will therefore want a union where there has been sufficient reform, and also one where markets are more flexible than their own. But existing members will want the same properties of their partners. Fiscal restrictions may exaggerate this incentive mismatch and could therefore delay the necessary reforms. Similarly, too large costs up front may also delay those reforms.     

Comment on: “When does a central bank’s balance sheet require fiscal support?” by Marco Del Negro and Christopher A. Sims

A central bank is insolvent if its plans imply a Ponzi scheme on reserves so the price level becomes infinity. If the central bank enjoys fiscal support, in the form of a dividend rule that pays out net income every period, including when it is negative, it can never become insolvent independently of the fiscal authority. Otherwise, this note distinguishes between intertemporal insolvency, rule insolvency, and period insolvency. While period and rule solvency depend on analyzing dividend rules and sources of risk to net income, evaluating intertemporal solvency requires overcoming the difficult challenge of measuring the present value of seignorage.     

Testing for a Debt‐Threshold Effect on Output Growth

Using the Reinhart–Rogoff dataset, we find a debt threshold not around 90 per cent but around 30 per cent, above which the median real gross domestic product (GDP) growth falls abruptly. Our work is the first to formally test for threshold effects in the relationship between public debt and median real GDP growth. The null hypothesis of no threshold effect is rejected at the 5 per cent significance level for most cases. While we find no evidence of a threshold around 90 per cent, our findings from the post‐war sample suggest that the debt threshold for economic growth may exist around a relatively small debt‐to‐GDP ratio of 30 per cent. Furthermore, countries with debt‐to‐GDP ratios above 30 per cent have GDP growth that is 1 percentage point lower at the median.