"Capital Income Taxes and Economic Performance"

Tax reform that reduces tax rates on capital income, no matter how successful it is in reducing the user cost of capital, will have at best minimal effects on capital formation and output and therefore on the growth of the U.S. economy.

"Minsky and the Mainstream: Has Recent Research Rediscovered Financial Keynesianism?"

Hyman Minsky's research emphasized the central role of finance in modern economics at a time when finance was not important in most mainstream macroeconomic research. But in the 1980s, mainstream research began to explore the role of finance in firm and consumer behavior. This paper examines the extent to which this recent mainstream research captures Minsky's insights and whether it extends his work. I argue that recent work on micro foundations-the link between economic behavior and finance--complements Minsky's contributions and corresponding empirical research provides strong support for his argument that financial conditions affect expenditures. But large differences remain between Minsky and the mainstream paradigm, especially in the role played by the financial system in macroeconomic fluctuations. Furthermore, there is much in Minsky's Big Government--Big Bank policy framework that does not appear in recent mainstream work.

Tax reform and investment: how big an impact?

Capital investments ; Corporations - Taxation ; Tax auditing

Tax reform and investment: blessing or curse?

Tax reform ; Capital investments ; Corporations - Taxation

Minsky and the Mainstream: Has Recent Research Rediscovered Financial Keynesianism

Hyman Minsky's research emphasized the central role of finance in modern economies at a time when finance was not important in most mainstream macroeconomic research. But in the 1980s, mainstream research began to explore the role of finance in firm and consumer behavior. This paper examines the extent to which this recent mainstream research captures Minsky's insights and whether it extends his work. I argue that recent work on micro foundations—the link between economic behavior and finance—complements Minsky's contributions and corresponding empirical research provides strong support for his argument that financial conditions affect expenditure. But large differences remain between Minsky and the mainstream paradigm, especially in the role played by the financial system in macroeconomic fluctuations. Furthermore, there is much in Minsky's Big Government–Big Bank policy framework that does not appear in recent mainstream work.

"Capital Gains Taxes and Economic Growth, Effects of a Capital Gains Tax Cut on the Investment Behavior of Firms"

Research Associate Steven M. Fazzari and Benjamin Herzon assess the effect of a capital gains tax cut on firms' decisions to undertake new investment projects and the possible effect of such projects on economic growth and employment. Their analysis takes into account such factors as projects' degree of uncertainty, investors' degree of risk aversion, whether capital gains losses are deductible against capital gains income, whether the market value of an investment project is affected by the imposition of capital gains taxes, and whether the project is financed by internal or external means. Fazzari and Herzon find that there is little theoretical or empirical basis for the view that lowering the capital gains tax rate would have a substantial effect on economic growth or level of economic activity. They estimate that the current proposal to lower the highest capital gains tax rate from 28.0 percent to 19.8 percent would have a long-term effect on the level of output no greater than the impact of roughly two months of normal economic growth, and it would take years to realize even this small benefit. Indexing the rate to inflation would have a somewhat larger, but still small, effect. Fazzari and Herzon conclude that capital gains taxes have a negligible influence on investment decisions and dispute the claim that a lower capital gains tax rate would have large beneficial effects on output, growth, or entrepreneurial activity in the U.S. economy.

Market Power and Inflation

Market power exercised by firms has become central to macroeconomics. Recent theoretical work highlights the importance of the relation between market power and inflation. We examine this relation for individual firms in eleven U.S. industries. Our econometric framework exploits restrictions from dynamic theory and information from financial markets to generate quantitative evidence on the responsiveness of market power to inflation. We find that inflation usually has a positive effect on market power. This relation is heterogeneous across the eleven industries, and statistically significant positive relations are concentrated in industries with little market power.

On the joint second moment of zeta and its logarithmic derivative

Assuming the Riemann Hypothesis, Goldston, Gonek and Montgomery \cite{GGM} studied the second moment of the log-derivative of $\zeta$, shifted away from the half line by $a/\log T$, and its connection with the pair correlation conjecture. In this paper, we consider a weighted version of this problem, where the average is tilted by $|\zeta(\frac{1}{2}+it)|^2$. More precisely, we provide an upper and a lower bound for the second moment of zeta times its logarithmic derivative, $a/\log T$ away from the critical line. As a corollary, we deduce an upper bound for the variance on short intervals of the sum of the arithmetic function given by the von Mangoldt convolved with a shift

Weighted statistics of L-functions

This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter 1 and 2 are a general introduction to the Riemann zeta function, with a special focus on the theory of moments; no original results are contained here. In Chapter 3 we study a weighted value distribution of the Riemann zeta function on the critical line. More specifically, assuming the Riemann Hypothesis, we investigate the distribution of $log|zeta(1/2+it)|$ with respect to various tilted measures, proving several weighted analogues of Selberg's central limit theorem. Moreover we prove unconditionally the analogue results in the corresponding random matrix theory setting. These contents first appeared in [54,55]. Chapter 4 is devoted to a weighted version of the one-level density of the non-trivial zeros of $L$-functions, tilted by a power of the $L$-function evaluated at the central point. First, we study this problem for the Riemann zeta function, both unconditionally and assuming the ratio conjecture. Then we generalize these ideas for specific families of $L$-functions with different symmetry types; in particular we consider a symplectic and an orthogonal family of $L$-functions and, under the relevant ratio conjecture, we study the weighted one-level density of non-trivial zeros of these $L$-functions