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Discussion Paper
New manufacturing investment and unions
Despite recent media stories about both labor unions and the potential revitalization of U.S. manufacturing, most current policy discussions about improving business climate to foster manufacturing neglect the role of unions. This, plus the continued decline in U.S. union membership, might lead one to believe that unions matter little for new investment decisions. This essay argues that, in fact, unions remain an extremely significant factor in decisions by U.S. manufacturers about where they will or will not make new investments. Both unions and manufacturing are discussed in an analysis ...
Discussion Paper
Financial Repression: Evidence and Theory
?Financial repression??policies that allow a government to place its debt with financial institutions at relatively low interest rates?has been used widely for centuries. This essay focuses on one important form of repression: requiring financial intermediaries to hold more government bonds than they would if policies didn?t require it. We argue that this policy should only be used when the government has an urgent need to issue debt and has difficulty issuing new debt because of potential lender doubts about the government?s ability to repay. {{p}} This research suggests that policies that ...
Discussion Paper
How Rich Will China Become?
China?s impressive economic growth since the 1980s raises the question of how much richer it will become over future decades. Its growing share of the world economy affects other national economies. Understanding the future course of the Chinese economy is therefore important for both fiscal and monetary policymaking in the United States and elsewhere. Using fundamental growth theory, data from China and from Korea and Japan?s similar ?miracle? growth experiences, we provide a suggestive calculation for China?s future per capita income. Our ballpark estimate is that China?s per capita income ...
Discussion Paper
Models of government expenditure multipliers
In this note, we demonstrate and analyze the inability of standard neoclassical models to generate accurate estimates of the fiscal multiplier (that is, the macroeconomic response to increased government spending). We then examine whether estimates can be improved by incorporating recently developed theory on demand-induced productivity increases into neoclassical models. We find that neoclassical models modified in this fashion produce considerably better estimates, but they remain unable to generate anything close to an accurate value of the fiscal multiplier.
Discussion Paper
What assets should banks be allowed to hold?
Banks are vulnerable to self-fulfilling panics because their liabilities (such as demand deposits and certificates of deposit) are short term and unconditional, and their assets (such as mortgages and business loans) are long term and illiquid. To prevent wider financial fallout from such panics, governments have strong incentive to bail out bank debtholders. Paradoxically, expectations of such bailouts can lead financial systems to rely excessively?from a societal perspective?on short-term debt to fund long-term assets. Fragile banking systems thus impose external costs, and regulation may ...
Discussion Paper
On the Ethics of Redistribution
Analysts of optimal policy often advocate for redistributive policies within developed economies using a behind-the-veil-of-ignorance criterion. Such analyses almost invariably ignore the effects of these policies on the well-being of people in poor countries. We argue that this approach is fundamentally misguided because it violates the criterion itself.
Discussion Paper
The Great Recession and Financial Shocks
A case can be made for the Great Recession being the result of a large financial shock that makes household borrowing difficult. The channel involves large reductions in house prices, which trigger sharp reductions in consumption. {{p}} We discuss the ingredients necessary for a quantitative macroeconomic model to successfully implement such a theory. They include: wealth heterogeneity, where the majority of the population needs to acquire financing to purchase houses despite the large amount of wealth in the economy; sizable real frictions that hinder the transformation of consumption into ...
Discussion Paper
Thoughts on the Federal Reserve System's exit strategy
How can banks and similar institutions design optimal compensation systems? Would such systems conflict with the goals of society? This paper considers a theoretical framework of how banks structure job contracts with their employees to explore three points: the structure of a socially optimal compensation system; the structure of a compensation system that is privately optimal, given the reality of government-guaranteed bank debt; and policy interventions that can lead from the second structure to the first. Analysis reveals a potential policy option: providing proper incentives to banks by ...
Discussion Paper
Monetary Policy and Employment
In its ?Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy,? the Federal Open Market Committee (Federal Reserve Board of Governors, 2014) summarizes its two main objectives: to mitigate (i) deviations of inflation from its longer-run goal and (ii) deviations of employment from the Federal Open Market Committee?s assessment of its maximum level. In the case of employment, the statement acknowledges that ?the maximum level ... is largely determined by nonmonetary factors,? which is why the FOMC sets no fixed goal for the employment level. It instead depends on the Committee?s ...
Discussion Paper
Policies to stimulate innovation