Author: Johannes Fleck Publisher: ISBN: Category : Fiscal policy Languages : en Pages : 180
Book Description
The first chapter of this thesis is "State Tax and Transfer Progressivity and the Consumption Response to Fiscal Stimulus". It studies the relationship between tax policies of US state governments and the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) out of stimulus checks. For the 2001 and 2008 stimulus episodes, I document striking regional discrepancies; the household average MPC in states with the most regressive taxes and transfers was between 23 and 59 cents per Dollar received but no different from zero in progressive states. I do not find evidence that other state policies, such as labor and credit market policies, or exogenous differences in earnings risk contribute to explaining MPC cross-state discrepancies. The second chapter "Federal, State and Local Tax Progressivity", coauthored with J. Heathcote, K. Storesletten and G. Violante, measures the progressivity of taxes and transfers for each of the US states and compares it to federal progressivity. Our findings are twofold. First, most nonfederal taxes, especially property taxes, are regressive. Second, state and local tax regressivity varies substantially; states which have more progressive tax and transfer systems tend to be Democrat-leaning, to be more ethnically diverse and to have lower income polarization. The third chapter "The Tax Progressivity of the Fifty Nifty: Evidence from America's Working Poor", coauthored with C. Simpson-Bell explores how insurance against transitory earnings shocks for households with low in- comes varies across US states. We overcome limitations in survey data by constructing a micro simulation model to measure the combined response of federal and state income taxes and transfers to a shock to pre-tax earnings. We account for the geographic uniformity of federal policies as well as regional variation in income distributions, price levels and net transfer policies of state governments. Our findings document large geographic differences in marginal tax rates faced by low-income households.
Author: Gergő Motyovszki Publisher: ISBN: Category : Macroeconomics Languages : en Pages : 156
Book Description
This thesis is composed of three independent chapters, but all centered around the broader topic of how macroeconomic policies interact with various aspects of household heterogeneity. Monetary Policy and Inequality under Labor Market Frictions and Capital-Skill Complementarity We provide a new channel through which monetary policy has distributional consequences at business cycle frequencies. We show that an unexpected monetary easing increases labor income inequality between high and less-skilled workers. In particular, this effect is prominent in sectors intensive in less-skilled labor, that exhibit high degree of capital-skill complementarity (CSC) and are subject to matching inefficiencies. To rationalize these findings we build a New Keynesian DSGE model with asymmetric search and matching (SAM) frictions across the two types of workers and CSC in the production function. We show that CSC on its own introduces a dynamic demand amplification mechanism: the increase in high-skilled employment after a monetary expansion makes complementary capital more productive, encouraging a further rise in investment demand and creating a multiplier effect. SAM asymmetries magnify this channel. Monetary-Fiscal Interactions and Redistribution in Small Open Economies Ballooning public debts in the wake of the covid-19 pandemic can present monetary-fiscal policies with a dilemma if and when neutral real interest rates rise, which might arrive sooner in emerging markets: policymakers can stabilize debts either by relying on fiscal adjustments (AM-PF) or by tolerating higher inflation (PM-AF). The choice between these policy mixes affects the efficacy of the fiscal expansion already today and can interact with the distributive properties of the stimulus across heterogeneous households. To study this, I build a two agent New Keynesian (TANK) small open economy model with monetary-fiscal interactions. Targeting fiscal transfers more towards high-MPC agents increases the output multiplier of a fiscal stimulus, while raising the degree of deficitfinancing for these transfers also helps. However, precise targeting is much more important under the AM-PF regime than the question of financing, while the opposite is the case with a PM-AF policy mix: then deficit-spending is crucial for the size of the multiplier, and targeting matters less. Under the PM-AF regime fiscal stimulus entails a real exchange rate depreciation which might offset "import leakage" by stimulating net exports, if the share of hand-to-mouth households is low and trade is price elastic enough. Therefore, a PM-AF policy mix might break the Mundell-Fleming prediction that open economies have smaller fiscal multipliers relative to closed economies. Weak Wage Recovery and Precautionary Motives after a Credit Crunch During the economic recovery following the financial crisis many advanced economies saw subdued wage dynamics, in spite of falling unemployment and an increasingly tight labour market. We propose a mechanism which can account for this puzzle and work against usual aggregate demand channels. In a heterogeneous agent model with incomplete markets we endogenize uninsurable idiosyncratic risk through search-and-matching (SAM) frictions in the labour market. In this setting, apart from the usual precautionary saving behaviour, households can self-insure also by settling for lower wages in order to secure a job and thereby avoid becoming borrowing constrained. This channel is especially pronounced for asset-poor agents, already close to the constraint. We introduce a credit crunch into this framework modelled as a gradual tightening of the borrowing constraint (and utilizing a continuous time approach, known as HACT). The perfect foresight transition dynamics feature falling wages despite a tightening labour market and expanding employment. As households suddenly find themselves closer to the borrowing constraint, the increased precautionary motive drives them to accept lower wages in the bargaining process, while firms respond to this by posting more vacancies, leading to a tighter labour market and falling unemployment. If the household deleveraging pressure is persistent enough after the credit crunch, it can explain the weak wage recovery in spite of already stronger aggregate demand.
Author: Lukas Nord Publisher: ISBN: Category : Households Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
This thesis contains four independent essays studying the consequences of household heterogeneity for Macroeconomics. The first chapter studies the implications of household heterogeneity for equilibrium prices. I break with the canonical assumptions of homothetic preferences and the law of one price to show how heterogeneity in consumption baskets and search for price bargains affects posted prices. Analytical results from search theory and empirical evidence from big data on households' grocery transactions show that price distributions respond to the composition of buyers. In a quantitative heterogeneous agent model with endogenous price dispersion for multiple varieties, I find that the response of retailers to households' search effort is quantitatively important to differentiate between inequality in expenditure and consumption. It more than doubles the direct effect of paying more or less given posted prices, which has been the focus of previous literature. Furthermore, I find that household heterogeneity helps to account for the empirical cyclicality of retail prices and markups in response to aggregate shocks, and has implications for the response of prices to redistributive policies. In the second chapter, which is joint work with Annika Bacher and Philipp Grübener, we show how households with two members can insure themselves against the job loss of a primary earner through the labor force entry of a nonparticipating spouse. We document empirically that this margin is predominantly used by young households. In a two-member life cycle model with endogenous arrival rates, human capital accumulation, and extensive-margin labor supply, we explore how differences in labor market opportunities and asset holdings contribute to this pattern. Our findings suggest that the age difference is predominantly explained by better insurance through asset holdings for the old, while differences in arrival rates and human capital play a smaller role. In the third chapter, which is joint work with Caterina Mendicino and Marcel Peruffo, we study differences in the exposure to bank distress along the income distribution. We develop a two-asset heterogeneous agent model with a financial sector and use this framework to show that banking sector losses disproportionately harm low-income households while rich households adjust their savings behavior to profit from fluctuations in asset prices. This is why welfare losses from bank distress are considerably more dispersed than consumption responses. We find the model-implied consumption responses to be in line with empirical evidence on the relationship between bank equity returns and consumption across households. In the forth chapter, I study how wealth holdings can affect households' incentives to form precise expectations about future inflation rates. I document empirically how the dispersion of expectations changes along the wealth distribution and develop a consumption-savings model with costly expectation formation to study implications for the effectiveness of forward guidance policies. I show endogenous expectation formation to significantly lower the effectiveness of forward guidance policies due to selection in which households are paying attention to news about inflation.
Author: Alaïs Martin-Baillon Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 256
Book Description
It is now recognized that the heterogeneity of economic agents plays a crucial role in understanding the fluctuations of an economy. The different chapters of my thesis serve the same question: How does heterogeneity changes the way economic policies should be conducted? Today, heterogeneous-agent macroeconomics is developing in several directions, each shedding different light on the problems we face as economists. My thesis is at the confluence of the different facets of this field. The first chapter of my thesis, participates in the heterogeneous agent macroeconomics that derives analytical solutions in reduced-heterogeneity models. I study how governments should increase or decrease taxes on firms over the business cycle. I show that taking into account firms heterogeneity greatly changes tax policy recommendations. The second chapter of my thesis is part of quantitative heterogeneous agent macroeconomics. We study whether monetary policy should use its ability to redistribute wealth among heterogenous households to achieve its objectives. The third chapter of my thesis participates in field that uses micro data to understand macroeconomics and to design public policies. I estimate firms' propensities to invest to better understand how economic policies can vary firms' investment by varying their income.
Author: Zhigang Ge Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 0
Book Description
Abstract Chapter 1. Heterogeneous Entrepreneurial Ability and Wealth Inequality Models with entrepreneurship can reproduce high wealth concentration at the top. The key assumption is the borrowing constraint, that is, households are unable to borrow enough assets to start a business or invest optimally in the business. However, some empirical evidences show that borrowing constraint does not matter for the majority of households in the US. This paper seeks to generate high wealth concentration at the top without assuming borrowing constraint. The baseline model that introduces heterogeneity in entrepreneurial ability is able to match the wealth distribution while the model assuming same entrepreneurial ability fails. Besides wealth distribution, the baseline model generates other moments that are consistent with the data. Chapter 2. Taxing Top Earners: The Role of Entrepreneurs This paper studies the optimal top marginal income tax rate in a quantitative framework with entrepreneurial choice, financing constraints, and realistic earnings and wealth distributions. I find that the revenue-maximizing top tax rate is approximately 41 percent -- close to the recent levels in the US. In contrast, when calibrated with only workers to match realistic earnings and wealth distributions, the model predicts a revenue-maximizing top tax rate of 81 percent -- close to the established view. There are two channels through which the baseline model has a lower revenue-maximizing top tax rate. First, the wealth distribution channel: increasing the top tax rate decreases wealth accumulation and leads to a less skewed wealth distribution in the long run (there are more top entrepreneurs with low wealth and less top entrepreneurs with high wealth). With financing constraints, there is a similar change in the business earnings distribution, implying a fall in the average business earnings at the top. Second, the general equilibrium effect on labor earnings of workers: in the model with entrepreneurs, increasing the top tax rate reduces the capital stock much more than labor supply, which decreases the capital-labor ratio and thus the equilibrium wage rate in the model economy. Finally, I find that the welfare-maximizing top marginal income tax rate is close to the revenue-maximizing one. Chapter 3. Household Heterogeneity and Consumption Amplification Macroeconomic models with household heterogeneity in wealth can generate larger consumption response to aggregate shocks compared to a representative-agent economy. In other words, there is consumption amplification associated with wealth heterogeneity. However, I find that in a Krusell-Smith type real business cycle (RBC) model, this amplification effect is only significant at the onset of a recession and gradually dies out as the recession proceeds. The finding is of interest because part of the motivation for the widely adoption of models with wealth heterogeneity is their different and empirically plausible implications for consumption dynamics compared with representative-agent models. I then introduce household heterogeneity in housing and find that the model with housing has more persistent amplification effect on consumption during the recession.
Author: Minsu Chang Publisher: ISBN: Category : Languages : en Pages : 260
Book Description
This dissertation consists of two chapters that explore how micro-level heterogeneity helps us understand the dynamics of macroeconomic variables. Chapter 2 shows that the evolving likelihood of marriage and divorce is an essential factor in accounting for the changes in housing decisions over time in the United States. I build and estimate a life-cycle model of single and married households who face exogenous age-dependent marital transition shocks and then conduct a decomposition analysis between 1970 and 1995. The results show that household formation shocks could account for about 30% of the increase in the single's homeownership rate and play a crucial role in generating the observed sign of change in portfolio share of married households. The extended analysis on recent years after 1995 shows that the continuing decrease in marriage prospects contributed to push up the single's homeownership rate during the housing boom in the mid 2000s. Chapter 3 develops a state-space model with a state-transition equation that takes the form of a functional vector autoregression and stacks macroeconomic aggregates and a cross-sectional density. The measurement equation captures the error in estimating log densities from repeated cross-sectional samples. The log densities and the transition kernels in the law of motion of the states are approximated by sieves, which leads to a finite-dimensional representation in terms of macroeconomic aggregates and sieve coefficents. We illustrate how the model works based on the simulation of the Krusell-Smith economy and conduct an empirical analysis on the joint dynamics of technology shocks, per capita GDP, employment rates, and the earnings distribution.
Author: Johannes Fleck
Author: Isaac Gross
Author: Gergő Motyovszki
Author: Kieran P. Larkin
Author: Lukas Nord
Author: Giacomo Schwarz
Author: Alaïs Martin-Baillon
Author: Zhigang Ge
Author: Claire Thürwächter
Author: Minsu Chang