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Discussion Paper
Do Import Tariffs Help Reduce Trade Deficits?
Import tariffs are on the rise in the UnitedStates, with a long list of new tariffs imposed in the last few months?25percent on steel imports, 10percent on aluminum, and 25percent on $50billion of goods from China?and possibly more to come. One of the objectives of these new tariffs is to reduce the U.S.trade deficit, which stood at $568.4 billion in 2017 (2.9percent of GDP). The fact that the United States imports far more than it exports is viewed by some as unfair, so the idea is to try to reduce the amount that the nation imports from the rest of the world. While more costly imports are ...
Working Paper
The Value of Constraints on Discretionary Government Policy
This paper investigates how institutional constraints discipline the behavior of discretionary governments subject to an expenditure bias. The focus is on constraints implemented in actual economies: monetary policy targets, limits on the deficit and debt ceilings. For a variety of aggregate shocks considered, the best policy is to impose a minimum primary surplus of about half a percent of output. Most welfare gains from constraining government behavior during normal times, which to a large extent is sufficient to discipline policy in adverse times. Monetary policy targets are not generally ...
Working Paper
How to Starve the Beast: Fiscal Policy Rules
Countries have widely imposed fiscal rules designed to constrain government spending and ensure fiscal responsibility. This paper studies the effectiveness and welfare implications of revenue, deficit and debt rules when governments are discretionary and profligate. The optimal prescription is a revenue ceiling coupled with a balance budget requirement. For the U.S., the optimal revenue ceiling is about 15% of output, 3 percentage points below the postwar average, and yields welfare gains equivalent to 10% of consumption. Most of the benefits can still be reaped with a milder constraint or ...
Working Paper
How to Starve the Beast: Fiscal and Monetary Policy Rules
Societies often rely on simple rules to restrict the size and behavior of governments. When fiscal and monetary policies are conducted by a discretionary and profligate government, I find that revenue ceilings vastly outperform debt, deficit and monetary rules, both in effectiveness at curbing public spending and welfare for private agents. However, effective revenue ceilings induce an increase in deficit, debt and inflation. Under many scenarios, including recurrent adverse shocks, the optimal ceiling on U.S. federal revenue is about 15% of GDP, which leads to welfare gains for private ...