Premium subsidies and demand for private health insurance: results from a regression discontinuity design

This article investigates the impact of a private health insurance (PHI) subsidy on the demand for PHI in the context of the Australian health care system. In particular, we focus on the subpopulation of elderly Australians and exploit discontinuous increases to the universal ‘PHI rebate’ that occur when people turn 65 and 70 years. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find the policy has little effect on take-up of PHI and is best interpreted as a wealth transfer to elderly Australians who already have insurance.     

关于“双顺差”背景下实现中国内外均衡的思考

内外均衡目标是指充分就业、物价稳定、经济增长及国际收支均衡。目前，中国正面临通货紧缩的压力和国际收支双顺差的格局，因此需通过扩张性的财政及货币政策进行协调，同时辅以汇率及利率政策。只有内外兼顾统一才能使经济实现稳定发展。     

Do Government Purchases Affect Unemployment?

We estimate the effect of government purchases on unemployment in 20 OECD countries, for the period 1980–2007. An increase in government purchases, equal to 1 percent of GDP, is found to reduce unemployment by about 0.3 percentage points in the same year. The effect is greater and more persistent under less “employment‐friendly” labour‐market institutions, and it is greater and more persistent under a fixed exchange rate regime than under a floating regime. The effect is also greater in downturns than in booms. The effect on unemployment reflects a corresponding positive effect of increased government purchases on the employment‐to‐population rate.     

The global dimension to fiscal sustainability

This paper provides a new perspective of fiscal sustainability and financial globalization in emerging and industrial countries. We highlight the importance of global capital market shocks for fiscal sustainability, a relationship which has hitherto been ignored in the empirical literature. Using a factor model we demonstrate that the relationship between deficit and debt is conditional upon a global factor and we suggest that this global factor is related to world-wide liquidity. We also demonstrate that this acts as a constraint on emerging market economies’ fiscal policy.     

Does microcredit increase borrowers’ savings? A fuzzy regression discontinuity design approach

Microcredit has expanded rapidly in recent years but its effect at the household level is still controversial. This paper uses a unique data-set collected from 69 villages in Bangladesh to estimate the effect of participation in microcredit programs on household savings. A regression discontinuity design (RDD) is used to identify the credit effect. To justify the validity of RDD, we test the discontinuities in the conditional density of the forcing variable (in our case, household land), as suggested by McCrary. We do not find any substantial evidence of manipulation of forcing variable at the threshold to invalidate the RDD. Our results show that access to credit increases savings of the borrowers.     

Impact of microcredit on borrowers’ expenditures: a fuzzy regression discontinuity design approach

This article uses the data from 69 villages in Bangladesh to estimate the effect of participation in microcredit programmes on household expenditures. A regression discontinuity design (RDD) is used to identify the credit effect. Our results show heterogeneous treatment effect on different types of expenditures. We show that access to credit reduces per capita expenditure on durable goods such as kitchen equipment, furniture, repair and maintenance of house and increases the expenditure on per school-going child. We also show insignificant impact of access to credit on non-durable goods and health care, recreation and gifts. Interestingly, our results indicate a positive impact of microcredit on village-level expenditures.     

Differences in measures of the fiscal multiplier and the reduced-form vector autoregression

The literature has recently asked whether the effects of fiscal policy vary with the state of the economy (Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Rebelo 2011; Rendahl 2014; Auerbach and Gorodnichenko 2012). We study this question in the context of vector autoregression (VAR) estimation. We show formally that, if (asymptotically) the parameters of the reduced-form VAR differ, then the dynamic effects of fiscal policy differ as well, generically and for any set of identification assumptions. Thus, in theory, the econometrician can detect these differences (either across time or space) generically just by relying on reduced-form VAR estimation.     

Tax-spending policies and economic growth: Theoretical predictions and evidence from the OECD

We present an endogenous growth model to study the growth effects of the composition of government expenditure and the associated tax burden. When we use data from a set of 23 OECD countries during 1970–2000, our econometric results support the predictions of the theory. The share of productive government expenditure is associated with higher growth, and this result is more robust when we use effective average tax rates and statutory tax rates as measures of the tax burden. With respect to the tax burden, different tax rates have different growth effects.     

Monetary and fiscal policy interactions in a New Keynesian model with capital accumulation and non-Ricardian consumers

The paper examines simple monetary and fiscal policy rules consistent with determinate equilibrium dynamics in the absence of Ricardian equivalence. Under this assumption, government debt turns into a relevant state variable which needs to be accounted for in the analysis of equilibrium dynamics. The key analytical finding is that without explicit reference to the level of government debt it is not possible to infer how strongly the monetary and fiscal instruments should be used to ensure determinate equilibrium dynamics. Specifically, we identify bifurcations associated with threshold values of steady-state debt, leading to qualitative changes in the local determinacy requirements.     

Government size, composition, volatility and economic growth

This paper analyses the effects in terms of size and volatility of government revenue and spending on growth in OECD and EU countries. The results of the paper suggest that both variables are detrimental to growth. In particular, looking more closely at the effect of each component of government revenue and spending, the results point out that i) indirect taxes (size and volatility); ii) social contributions (size and volatility); iii) government consumption (size and volatility); iv) subsidies (size); and v) government investment (volatility) have a sizeable, negative and statistically significant effect on growth.     

How does population aging affect the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus over the business cycle?

What is the impact of population aging on the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus over the business cycle? We address this question by estimating state-dependent fiscal multipliers in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). A government spending shock is identified as a forecast error of government spending and its output effect is estimated by using the local projection method. We find that there is no effect of population aging on output effects of fiscal spending shocks in expansionary times, whereas in recessions the output effects of fiscal spending shocks are weakened as population ages. This result points to important policy implications in that population aging would call for a larger fiscal stimulus to support aggregate demand during recession. Thus, this requires a larger fiscal space to allow for a wider swing of the fiscal position without creating concerns for fiscal sustainability.     

Patching up the Pact

The paper considers the implications for the EU accession candidates of Central and Eastern Europe of the fiscal‐financial constraints imposed by the Stability and Growth Pact and the Maastricht Treaty. Our findings apply also to those current EU members whose initial conditions (e.g., infrastructure and progress in state pension reform) or other structural characteristics (e.g., demographic structure, growth potential, Balassa‐Samuelson equilibrium real exchange rate appreciation) differ significantly from the EU average. We find the existing criteria to be seriously flawed and propose an alternative rule, the Permanent Balance Rule, based on a strong form of tax smoothing.     

改革开放三十年:中国经济波动与宏观调控的回顾与反思

改革开放以来,我国经历了三次大的经济周期波动.伴随经济周期的波动,政府采取了不同的宏观调控政策,都收到了预期的成效且有各自的特点.文章对我国经济运行及宏观调控实践进行了历史回顾,进而对历次调控中存在的问题进行了反思.