Search Results
Working Paper
Optimal Taxes Under Private Information: The Role of the Inflation Tax
We consider an overlapping generation framework with search and private information to study optimal taxation. Agents sequentially trade in markets that are characterized by different frictions and trading protocols. In frictional decentralized markets, agents receive shocks that determine if they are going to be consumers or producers. Shocks are private information. Mechanism design is used to solve for the constrained optimal allocation. We then study whether a government can replicate the constrained optimal allocation with an array of policy instruments including fiat money. We show that ...
Working Paper
Seigniorage and Sovereign Default: The Response of Emerging Markets to COVID-19
Monetary policy affects the tradeoffs faced by governments in sovereign default models. In the absence of lump-sum taxation, governments rely on both disortionary taxes and seigniorage to finance expenditure. Furthermore, monetary policy adds a time-consistency problem in debt choice, which may mitigate or exacerbate the incentives to accumulate debt. A deterioration of the terms-of-trade leads to an increase in sovereign-default risk and inflation, and a reduction in growth, which are consistent with the empirical evidence for emerging economies. An unanticipated shock resembling the ...
Working Paper
Sovereign Risk and Fiscal Information: A Look at the U.S. State Default of the 1840s
This paper examines how newspaper reporting affects government bond prices during the U.S. state default of the 1840s. Using unsupervised machine learning algorithms, the paper first constructs novel ``fiscal information indices'' for state governments based on U.S. newspapers at the time. The impact of the indices on government bond prices varied over time. Before the crisis, the entry of new western states into the bond market spurred competition: more state-specific fiscal news imposed downward pressure on bond prices for established states in the market. During the crisis, more ...
Briefing
Untangling Persistent Inflation: Understanding the Factors at Work
While recent inflation numbers have been encouraging, persistent inflationary pressures remain a topic of concern and policy deliberation. This article delves into some candidate drivers of inflation persistence and their implications for monetary policy. In particular, we explore factors contributing to the persistence of inflation, such as intrinsic persistence, complementarities, indexation, unanchoring of expectations, fiscal policy and other persistent inflationary shocks.
Working Paper
Expectations-Driven Liquidity Traps: Implications for Monetary and Fiscal Policy
We study optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a New Keynesian model where occasional declines in agents' confidence give rise to persistent liquidity trap episodes. There is no straightforward recipe for enhancing welfare in this economy. Raising the inflation target or appointing an inflation-conservative central banker mitigates the inflation shortfall away from the lower bound but exacerbates deflationary pressures at the lower bound. Using government spending as an additional policy instrument worsens allocations at and away from the lower bound. However, appointing a policymaker who is ...
How Quickly Does Fiscal Policy Get Implemented?
The response to the 2007-09 recession can provide a sense of timing when it comes to implementing fiscal policy.
Working Paper
Capital Gains Taxation and Investment Dynamics
This paper quanti?es the long-run effects of reducing capital gains taxes on aggregate investment. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous ?rms, which face discrete capital gains tax rates based on their ?rm size. We calibrate our model by targeting relevant micro moments as well as the difference-in-differences estimate of the capital elasticity based on the institutional setting and a policy reform in Korea. We ?nd that the ?rm-size reform that reduced the capital gains tax rates from 24 percent to 10 percent for the affected ?rms increased aggregate investment by ...
Working Paper
Domestic Policies and Sovereign Default
A model with two essential elements, sovereign default and distortionary fiscal and monetary policies, explains the interaction between sovereign debt, default risk and inflation in emerging countries. We derive conditions under which monetary policy is actively used to support fiscal policy and characterize the intertemporal tradeoffs that determine the choice of debt. We show that in response to adverse shocks to the terms of trade or productivity, governments reduce debt and deficits, and increase inflation and currency depreciation rates, matching the patterns observed in the data for ...
Briefing
Learning about Fiscal Policy Uncertainty
In response to the financial crisis and recession of 2007-09, the federal government enacted a number of emergency fiscal policies intended to aid recovery. These included short-term stimulus measures, such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and temporary tax reductions, such as the payroll tax cut in 2010. However, the unconventional and transitory nature of these fiscal policies may have contributed to greater economic uncertainty. Given the slow recovery that has followed the recession, economists are studying how such uncertainty might impact growth.
Working Paper
Labor Market Policies During an Epidemic
We study the positive and normative implications of labor market policies that counteract the economic fallout from containment measures during an epidemic. We incorporate a standard epidemiological model into an equilibrium search model of the labor market to compare unemployment insurance (UI) expansions and payroll subsidies. In isolation, payroll subsidies that preserve match capital and enable a swift economic recovery are preferred over a cost-equivalent UI expansion. When considered jointly, however, a cost-equivalent optimal mix allocates 20 percent of the budget to payroll subsidies ...