What are the Effects of Tax Changes in the United Kingdom? New Evidence from a Narrative Evaluation

This paper estimates the effects of tax changes on the U.K. economy. Identification is achieved by isolating the ‘exogenous’ tax policy shocks in the post-war U.K. economy using a narrative strategy as in Romer and Romer (2010). The resulting tax changes are shown to be unforecastable on the basis of past macroeconomic data. I find that a 1 per cent cut in taxes stimulates GDP by 0.6 per cent on impact and by 2.5 per cent over three years. These findings are remarkably similar to the corresponding estimates for the United States. The results reinforce the view that tax changes do indeed have powerful, persistent and significant effects on the economy. Finally, ‘exogenous’ tax changes are shown to have contributed to major episodes in the U.K. business cycle.fiscal policy, tax shocks, tax multiplier, narrative approach, business cycles

Monetary policy when households have debt : new evidence on the transmission mechanism

¿Qué efecto tiene la política monetaria sobre el consumo? Mediante el uso de información a nivel de hogar en el Reino Unido y Estados Unidos, este trabajo muestra que la mayor parte de la dinámica del consumo agregado después de un cambio en los tipos de interés a corto plazo, viene explicada por el comportamiento de los gastos de consumo de familias que son propietarias de una vivienda financiada por hipoteca. Por el contrario, aquellas familias propietarias de vivienda pero sin hipoteca, no cambian sus gastos de consumo, mientras que el consumo de aquellas familias que alquilan una vivienda responde a los cambios en tipos pero de forma más atenuada que para las familias hipotecadas. Una diferencia crucial entre estos tres modelos de familia es la composición de sus balances: las familias hipotecadas poseen, de media, una cantidad significativa de activos ilíquidos pero muy poca riqueza líquida, lo cual es congruente con una mayor propensión marginal a consumir. Una reducción en los tipos de interés genera, además de un incremento en el consumo, una expansión en la inversión en capital fijo por parte de empresas, lo cual contribuye a un impacto positivo sobre la demanda agregada en la economíaHow do changes in monetary policy affect consumption? Using household data for the US and the UK, we show that most of the aggregate response of consumption to interest rates is driven by households with a mortgage. Outright home owners do not adjust expenditure at all and renters change their spending but by less than mortgagors. Income rises for all households as interest rate cuts directly affect firm investment and household consumption, boosting aggregate demand. A key diference between these housing tenure groups is the composition of their balance sheets: mortgagors hold sizable illiquid assets but little liquid wealth, consistent with a higher marginal propensity to consum

Discretionary tax shocks in the United Kingdom 1945-2009: a narrative account and dataset

This paper constructs a narrative account of all legislated discretionary policy changes in the United Kingdom from 1945 to 2009. Following Romer and Romer (2009, 2010), evidence of the policymakers’ motivation is presented from U.K. official Budget documents together with technical notes, press releases, Acts of Parliament, the Budget speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and related entries in the parliamentary record (Hansard). The historical context in which the decision was made is also discussed. Using the given motives I isolate tax policy changes which were not responding to, or influenced by, current or prospective economic shocks. This ‘exogenous’ category is comprised of actions to improve long-run economic performance, those motivated by ideological or political reasons, rulings from external bodies such as courts, and fiscal consolidation measures based on long-run considerations. By contrast, the ‘endogenous’ changes are actions to manage demand, to stimulate production, to offset a debt crisis and those to fund spending decisions. For all the tax changes I collect information on the announcement, implementation and withdrawal dates as well as the type of the tax (such as income tax). The dataset contains nearly 2,500 tax changes and is aggregated into a quarterly series for analysis. In addition to creating a novel dataset this paper also contributes to the post-war history of U.K. taxation

Discretionary tax shocks in the United Kingdom 1945-2009: a narrative account and dataset

This paper constructs a narrative account of all legislated discretionary policy changes in the United Kingdom from 1945 to 2009. Following Romer and Romer (2009, 2010), evidence of the policymakers’ motivation is presented from U.K. official Budget documents together with technical notes, press releases, Acts of Parliament, the Budget speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and related entries in the parliamentary record (Hansard). The historical context in which the decision was made is also discussed. Using the given motives I isolate tax policy changes which were not responding to, or influenced by, current or prospective economic shocks. This ‘exogenous’ category is comprised of actions to improve long-run economic performance, those motivated by ideological or political reasons, rulings from external bodies such as courts, and fiscal consolidation measures based on long-run considerations. By contrast, the ‘endogenous’ changes are actions to manage demand, to stimulate production, to offset a debt crisis and those to fund spending decisions. For all the tax changes I collect information on the announcement, implementation and withdrawal dates as well as the type of the tax (such as income tax). The dataset contains nearly 2,500 tax changes and is aggregated into a quarterly series for analysis. In addition to creating a novel dataset this paper also contributes to the post-war history of U.K. taxation

Government spending shocks, wealth effects and distortionary taxes

This paper investigates the transmission mechanism of government spending shocks in an estimated dynamic general equilibrium model. I construct a New Keynesian model with distortionary labour and capital taxes and with references that allow the wealth effect on labour supply to vary in strength. I show that the interaction of these two features crucially affects the response of the economy to a government spending shock. The model's parameters are therefore estimated (including the tax policy rules) for the United States. I show that the estimated model can match the positive empirical response of key variables including output, consumption and the real wage - a challenge for many New Keynesian models. I find that the estimated importance of the wealth effect is small; that sticky prices, variable capital utilisation, investment adjustment costs and habits all play an important role; and that whilst tax rates rise following the shock, their small magnitude crucially reduces the distortions involved

Discretionary tax shocks in the United Kingdom 1945-2009: a narrative account and dataset

This paper constructs a narrative account of all legislated discretionary policy changes in the United Kingdom from 1945 to 2009. Following Romer and Romer (2009, 2010), evidence of the policymakers’ motivation is presented from U.K. official Budget documents together with technical notes, press releases, Acts of Parliament, the Budget speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and related entries in the parliamentary record (Hansard). The historical context in which the decision was made is also discussed. Using the given motives I isolate tax policy changes which were not responding to, or influenced by, current or prospective economic shocks. This ‘exogenous’ category is comprised of actions to improve long-run economic performance, those motivated by ideological or political reasons, rulings from external bodies such as courts, and fiscal consolidation measures based on long-run considerations. By contrast, the ‘endogenous’ changes are actions to manage demand, to stimulate production, to offset a debt crisis and those to fund spending decisions. For all the tax changes I collect information on the announcement, implementation and withdrawal dates as well as the type of the tax (such as income tax). The dataset contains nearly 2,500 tax changes and is aggregated into a quarterly series for analysis. In addition to creating a novel dataset this paper also contributes to the post-war history of U.K. taxation

Monetary policy, corporate finance and investment

En este trabajo se presenta nueva evidencia acerca del efecto que la política monetaria tiene sobre la inversión y la financiación de las empresas en Estados Unidos y en el Reino Unido. Las empresas más jóvenes y que no pagan dividendos son las que muestran la mayor, —y estadísticamente significativa—, reacción en términos de inversión en capital fijo, mientras que las empresas relativamente antiguas casi no presentan reacción alguna. Esto es así aun controlando por características tradicionales en esta literatura, como son el tamaño, el crecimiento en activos, la valuación, el apalancamiento y liquidez. La reacción de empresas jóvenes que no pagan dividendos explica el movimiento de la inversión agregada. Después de una contracción en la política monetaria, se observa una reacción de la valuación de todas las empresas, mientras que la deuda responde solo para aquellas empresas jóvenes que no pagan dividendos. Esto se debe a que estas últimas son las más expuestas a cambios en el valor del colateral a la hora de endeudarse. Por otro lado, se observa también una reacción en los flujos de caja, aunque dicha reacción es relativamente pequeña y homogénea entre empresas. Estos resultados resaltan la importancia de la estructura financiera, así como de las fricciones en la financiación externa de las empresas, en la amplificación de los efectos de la política monetaria sobre la inversión empresarialWe provide new evidence on how monetary policy affects investment and firm finance in the United States and the United Kingdom. Younger firms paying no dividends exhibit the largest and most signifcant change in capital expenditure – even after conditioning on size, asset growth, Tobin’s Q, leverage or liquidity – and drive the response of aggregate investment. Older companies, in contrast, hardly react at all. After a monetary policy tightening, net worth falls considerably for all firms but borrowing declines only for younger non-dividend payers, as their external finance is mostly exposed to asset value fluctuations. Conversely, cash-flows change less markedly and more homogeneously across groups. Our findings highlight the role of firm finance and financial frictions in amplifying the effects of monetary policy on investmen

Discretionary tax shocks in the United Kingdom 1945-2009: a narrative account and dataset

This paper constructs a narrative account of all legislated discretionary policy changes in the United Kingdom from 1945 to 2009. Following Romer and Romer (2009, 2010), evidence of the policymakers’ motivation is presented from U.K. official Budget documents together with technical notes, press releases, Acts of Parliament, the Budget speech by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and related entries in the parliamentary record (Hansard). The historical context in which the decision was made is also discussed. Using the given motives I isolate tax policy changes which were not responding to, or influenced by, current or prospective economic shocks. This ‘exogenous’ category is comprised of actions to improve long-run economic performance, those motivated by ideological or political reasons, rulings from external bodies such as courts, and fiscal consolidation measures based on long-run considerations. By contrast, the ‘endogenous’ changes are actions to manage demand, to stimulate production, to offset a debt crisis and those to fund spending decisions. For all the tax changes I collect information on the announcement, implementation and withdrawal dates as well as the type of the tax (such as income tax). The dataset contains nearly 2,500 tax changes and is aggregated into a quarterly series for analysis. In addition to creating a novel dataset this paper also contributes to the post-war history of U.K. taxation

Government spending shocks, wealth effects and distortionary taxes

This paper investigates the transmission mechanism of government spending shocks in an estimated dynamic general equilibrium model. I construct a New Keynesian model with distortionary labour and capital taxes and with references that allow the wealth effect on labour supply to vary in strength. I show that the interaction of these two features crucially affects the response of the economy to a government spending shock. The model's parameters are therefore estimated (including the tax policy rules) for the United States. I show that the estimated model can match the positive empirical response of key variables including output, consumption and the real wage - a challenge for many New Keynesian models. I find that the estimated importance of the wealth effect is small; that sticky prices, variable capital utilisation, investment adjustment costs and habits all play an important role; and that whilst tax rates rise following the shock, their small magnitude crucially reduces the distortions involved