Mental deficits
Public Debt and Low Interest Rates
Olivier Blanchard
NBER Working Paper, February 2019
Abstract:
This lecture focuses on the costs of public debt when safe interest rates are low. I develop four arguments. First, I show that the current U.S. situation in which safe interest rates are expected to remain below growth rates for a long time, is more the historical norm than the exception. If the future is like the past, this implies that debt rollovers, that is the issuance of debt without a later increase in taxes may well be feasible. Put bluntly, public debt may have no fiscal cost. Second, even in the absence of fiscal costs, public debt reduces capital accumulation, and may therefore have welfare costs. I show that welfare costs may be smaller than typically assumed. The reason is that the safe rate is the risk-adjusted rate of return to capital. If it is lower than the growth rate, it indicates that the risk-adjusted rate of return to capital is in fact low. The average risky rate however also plays a role. I show how both the average risky rate and the average safe rate determine welfare outcomes. Third, I look at the evidence on the average risky rate, i.e. the average marginal product of capital. While the measured rate of earnings has been and is still quite high, the evidence from asset markets suggests that the marginal product of capital may be lower, with the difference reflecting either mismeasurement of capital or rents. This matters for debt: The lower the marginal product, the lower the welfare cost of debt. Fourth, I discuss a number of arguments against high public debt, and in particular the existence of multiple equilibria where investors believe debt to be risky and, by requiring a risk premium, increase the fiscal burden and make debt effectively more risky. This is a very relevant argument, but it does not have straightforward implications for the appropriate level of debt. My purpose in the lecture is not to argue for more public debt. It is to have a richer discussion of the costs of debt and of fiscal policy than is currently the case.
Employment Structure and the Rise of the Modern Tax System
Anders Jensen
NBER Working Paper, January 2019
Abstract:
This paper studies how the transition from self-employment to employee-jobs over the long run of development explains growth in income tax capacity. I construct a new database which covers 100 household surveys across countries at different income levels and 140 years of historical data within the US (1870-2010). Using these data, I first establish four new stylized facts: 1) within country, the share of employees increases over the income distribution, and increases at all levels of income as a country develops; 2) the income tax exemption threshold moves down the income distribution as a country develops, tracking employee growth; 3) the employee share above the tax exemption threshold is maximized and remains constantly high; 4) movements in the tax exemption threshold account for the observed variation in tax collection across development. These findings are consistent with a model where a high employee share is a necessary condition for effective taxation and where the rise in income covered by information trails through increases in employee shares drives expansion of the income tax base. To provide a causal estimate of the impact of employee share on the exemption threshold, I study a state-led US development program implemented in the 1950s-60s which shifted up the level of employee share. The identification strategy exploits within-state changes in court-litigation status which generates quasi-experimental variation in the effective implementation date of the program. I find that the exogenous increase in employee share is associated with an expansion of the state income tax base and an increase in state income tax revenue.
The Impact of the Tax Cut and Jobs Act on the Spatial Distribution of High Productivity Households and Economic Welfare
Daniele Coen-Pirani & Holger Sieg
Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Tax Cut and Jobs Act of 2017 capped state and local tax deductions. We show that this new cap primarily affects households in the top percentile of the income distribution residing in high-tax, high-cost cities. We develop a new dynamic spatial equilibrium model to evaluate the impact of this policy change on the distribution of economic activity and aggregate welfare. We show that the tax reform is likely to lead to a relocation of older high-productivity households to low-cost cities. If local agglomeration externalities depend on these high-productivity households, the tax reform may substantially lower aggregate income.
The specialization curse: How economic specialization shapes public goods provision
Benjamin Barber & Nimah Mazaheri
Business and Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the relationship between economic specialization and government expenditures. We hypothesize that citizens and firms in economically specialized regions pressure politicians to invest in core economic sectors in lieu of spending on public goods that benefit the broader economy, such as education. We investigate our hypothesis through an examination of the United States and India. We confirm a negative relationship between economically specialized U.S. states and education spending, and a positive relationship between economically specialized U.S. states and firm subsidies. Next, we examine the effects of an immediate shock in a region's level of economic specialization by comparing Indian states created from federal bifurcation. We show how the creation of two highly specialized states (Bihar and Jharkhand) from a diversified state (Undivided Bihar) was associated with a decline in education spending but an increase in subsidies for core sectors.
State-Level Implications of Federal Tax Policies
Chang Liu & Noah Williams
Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The United States federal fiscal policy has differential impact across states. We construct a new quarterly state-level dataset that we use to analyze the impact of unexpected changes in federal personal and corporate income taxes. We find substantial heterogeneity across states, with more than half having no significant response to the tax cuts. In addition, less capital intensive states have larger responses to corporate tax cuts. Although puzzling in standard models, a model with corporate and non-corporate sectors is consistent with this evidence. Overall, our results suggest the importance of variation and reallocation across states in evaluating federal policy.
Heterogeneous Government Spending Multipliers in the Era Surrounding the Great Recession
Marco Bernardini, Selien De Schryder & Gert Peersman
Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
We use novel quarterly data of U.S. states to examine the dynamics of relative spending multipliers in the decade surrounding the Great Recession. While multipliers were around 1 in expansions, they reached values above 4 when a state was in a recession. Also a high (low) degree of household indebtedness augmented (lowered) a state's multiplier by 0.5 in expansions and by 2 in recessions. We further document modest positive spillover effects across states and show that a mere redistribution of spending across states also had a significant influence on the aggregate U.S. economy due to cross-state heterogeneity of the effects.
Reviving American Entrepreneurship? Tax Reform and Business Dynamism
Petr Sedláček & Vincent Sterk
Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act slashed tax rates on business income and introduced immediate expensing of investments. Using a quantitative heterogeneous-firms model, we investigate the long-run effects of such tax reforms on firm dynamics. We find that they can substantially increase business dynamism, potentially offsetting the large decline in the U.S. startup rate observed over recent decades. This result is driven by indirect equilibrium forces: the tax reform stimulates firm entry, leading to an increase in labor demand and wages. Related to this is a large boost of the number of firms and of aggregate output, investment and employment.
Recovery of 1933
Margaret Jacobson, Eric Leeper & Bruce Preston
NBER Working Paper, March 2019
Abstract:
When Roosevelt abandoned the gold standard in April 1933, he converted what had been effectively real government debt into nominal government debt to open the door to unbacked fiscal expansion. We argue that he followed a state-contingent fiscal rule that ran nominal-debt-financed primary deficits until the price level rose and economic activity recovered. Theory suggests that government spending multipliers can be substantially larger when fiscal expansions are unbacked than when they are tax-backed. VAR estimates find that primary deficits made quantitatively important contributions to raising both the price level and real GNP from 1933 through 1937. The evidence does not support the conventional monetary explanation that gold revaluation and gold inflows, which were permitted to raise the monetary base, drove the recovery independently of fiscal actions.
Interregional Inequality and the Dynamics of Government Spending
Dong Wook Lee & Melissa Ziegler Rogers
Journal of Politics, April 2019, Pages 487-504
Abstract:
We examine the distribution of economic productivity across subnational regions as a factor explaining the level and allocation of central government expenditure. As regional productivity becomes more dispersed, the preferences influencing national decision making should diverge, thus impeding agreement to expand the central state. However, if regional productivity becomes more right-skewed, an increasing number of less productive regions may be able to press for greater central outlays. Dispersion and skew of interregional inequality also shape the allocation of centralized spending. With growing economic dispersion across regions, decision makers are more likely to fund policy categories that aid citizens in all regions over those that are locally targeted. By contrast, with the distribution of regional productivity skewing farther to the right, central expenditure is likely to become more locally targeted. We find strong evidence for these propositions in error correction models using new measures of interregional inequality and government policy priorities for 24 OECD countries.
Tax Policy and Local Labor Market Behavior
Daniel Garrett, Eric Ohrn & Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato
NBER Working Paper, February 2019
Abstract:
Since 2002, the US government has encouraged business investment using accelerated depreciation policies that significantly reduce investment costs. We provide the first in-depth analysis of this stimulus on employment and earnings. Our local labor markets approach exploits cross-industry differences in policy generosity interacted with county-level variation in industry concentration. Places that experience larger decreases in investment costs see a level increase in employment that implies a $53,000 cost-per-job. We find no positive effects on average earnings. In contrast, we document a persistent growth in capital. These results imply a capital-labor substitution elasticity that grows over time and can exceed unity.
Relinquishing Riches: Auctions vs Informal Negotiations in Texas Oil and Gas Leasing
Thomas Covert & Richard Sweeney
NBER Working Paper, March 2019
Abstract:
This paper compares outcomes from informally negotiated oil and gas leases to those awarded via centralized auction. We use data on all contractual characteristics and production outcomes for a class of state-owned mineral rights overlying newly discovered shale formations in Texas, between 2005 and 2016. On roughly three quarters of this land, the Texas Relinquishment Act of 1919 authorizes private individuals who own surface-only rights to negotiate mineral leases on behalf of the public in exchange for half of the proceeds. The remainder are allocated via centralized auctions. Using variation from this natural experiment, we find that almost a century after leasing mechanisms were assigned, auctioned leases generate 67% larger up-front payments than negotiated leases do. The two mechanisms also allocate mineral rights to different oil and gas companies, and leases allocated by auction are 44% more productive. These results are consistent with theoretical intuitions that centralized, formal mechanisms, like auctions, outperform decentralized and informal mechanisms, in both seller revenues and allocative efficiency. Our findings have important implications for the more than $3 trillion of minerals owned by private individuals in the US, the vast majority of which transact in informal and decentralized settings.