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Working Paper
Fiscal Austerity in Ambiguous Times
This paper analyzes optimal fiscal policy with ambiguity aversion and endogenous government spending. We show that, without ambiguity, optimal surplus-to-output ratios are acyclical and that there is no rationale for either reduction or further accumulation of public debt. In contrast, ambiguity about the cycle can generate optimally policies that resemble "austerity" measures. Optimal policy prescribes higher taxes in adverse times and front-loaded fiscal consolidations that lead to a balanced primary budget in the long-run. This is the case when interest rates are sufficiently responsive ...
Discussion Paper
The Debt Ceiling as a “Fiscal Rule”
A few months ago, the federal government was once again confronted with the need to raise the statutory limit on the amount of debt issued by the Treasury. As in the past, the protracted stalemate and associated uncertainty led to calls to eliminate the debt ceiling. In this post, I make the counterargument. Likely because of its straightforwardness, the debt ceiling has been an effective “fiscal rule.” The reduction of the federal deficit from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s was due in large part to a series of budget compromises, all of which were accompanied by the need to raise the ...
Working Paper
Consumer Spending and Fiscal Consolidation: Evidence from a Housing Tax Experiment
A major change of the property tax system in 2011 generated significant variation in the amount of housing taxes paid by Italian households. Using new questions added to the Survey on Household Income and Wealth (SHIW), we exploit this variation to provide an unprecedented analysis of the effects of property taxes on consumer spending. A tax on the main dwelling leads to large expenditure cuts among households with mortgage debt and low liquid wealth but generates only small revenues for the government. In contrast, higher tax rates on other residential properties reduce private savings and ...