Optimal Long-Run Fiscal Policy: Constraints, Preferences and the Resolution of Uncertainty

We construct a computational dynamic stochastic overlapping generations general equilibrium model with uncertain lifetimes and explore the impact of policy stickiness (specifically, a major reform will preclude future reforms for a generation) on optimal long-run fiscal policy. Under such circumstances, entitlement reforms exhaust a valuable option to move in the future. We explore the conditions under which the gain to waiting is large enough to induce optimizing policymakers to delay reforming a suboptimal system. We also allow for the uncertainty to have ARCH characteristics and explore the impact of time-varying uncertainty on the optimality of delayed policy action.

The 2003 Dividend Tax Cuts and the Value of the Firm: An Event Study

The "Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act of 2003" (JGTRA03) contained a number of significant tax provisions, but the most noteworthy may have been the reduction in dividend tax rates. The political debate over the dividend tax reductions of 2003 took a number of surprising twists and turns. Accordingly, it is likely that the views of market participants concerning the probability of significant dividend tax reduction fluctuated significantly during 2003. In this paper, we use this fact to estimate the effects of dividend tax policy on firm value. We find that firms with higher dividend yields benefited more than other dividend paying firms, a result that, in itself, is consistent with both new and traditional views of dividend taxation. But further evidence points toward the new view and away from the traditional view. We also find that non-dividend-paying firms experienced larger abnormal returns than other firms as the result of the dividend tax cut, and that a similar bonus accrued to firms likely to issue new shares, two results that may appear surprising at first but are consistent with the theory developed in the paper.

Energy Tax Credits and Residential Conservation Investment

We model the decision to invest in residential energy conservation capital as an irreversible investment in the face of price uncertainty. The irreversible nature of this investment means that there is a value to waiting to invest (an option value) which helps explain the low rate of conservation investment as a result of the residential energy tax credit. Simulations suggest that a tax credit of the type implemented from 1978 through 1985 will not increase conservation investment significantly. We investigate the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of credits using data from a panel data set of roughly 38,000 individual tax returns followed over a three year period from 1979-1981. Unlike previous work, we find that the energy tax credit is statistically significant in explaining the probability of investing. Our estimates suggest that increasing the federal credit by 10 percentage points would increase the percentage of households claiming the credit from 5.7% to 7.1%.

Uncertainty and the Design of Long-Run Fiscal Policy

This paper explores optimal fiscal policy in an overlapping-generations general-equilibrium model under uncertainty and the impact on optimal policy of the introduction of a type of policy stickiness intended to account for the stylized fact that major reforms happen infrequently. In general, our analysis suggests not only that action should not be delayed, but further that action should actually be accelerated. The added realism of restrictions on the frequency of policy changes alters this result in two ways. The prospect of being unable to set policy in the future occasions even more precautionary saving today, if the government acts. However, the government may also choose not to set policy, and its inaction range is very asymmetric. Because the impact of its policies on the current elderly cannot be reversed in the future, the government is much more likely to choose inaction when fiscal tightening is called for. Thus, the optimal policy response over time might best be characterized by great caution in general, but punctuated by occasional periods of apparent irresponsibility.

Dividend Taxes and Firm Valuation: New Evidence

This paper extends our previous analysis (Auerbach and Hassett 2005) of the effects of the "Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Act of 2003" on firm valuation. That paper found that firms with higher dividend yields benefited more than other dividend paying firms, a result that, in itself, is consistent with both new and traditional views of dividend taxation. But further evidence favored the new view. We also found that non-dividend-paying "immature" firms experienced larger abnormal returns than other firms and that a similar bonus accrued to firms likely to issue new shares, two results that are consistent with an anticipated transition to higher dividend payments. Here, we extend our earlier analysis in two ways. First, we consider the impact of the 2004 Presidential election on option prices, to gain further insight into and confirmation of the mechanism through which the 2003 legislation affected firm values. Second, we explore in more detail the determinants of the "immaturity premium" noted above. In contrast to claims in a recent paper by Amromin et al. (2005), we find that the premium is associated with the likelihood of new share issuance, as inferred but not demonstrated in our original analysis.

The Incidence of a U.S. Carbon Tax: A Lifetime and Regional Analysis

This paper measures the direct and indirect incidence of a carbon tax using current income and two measures of lifetime income to rank households. Our results suggest that carbon taxes are more regressive when annual income is used as a measure of economic welfare than when proxies for lifetime income are used. Further, the direct component of the tax, in any given year, is significantly more regressive than the indirect component. In fact, for 1987, the indirect component of the tax is mildly progressive. We observe a modest shift over time with the direct component of carbon taxes becoming less regressive and the indirect component becoming more regressive. These effects mostly offset each other and the distribution of the total tax burden has not changed much over time. In addition we find that regional variation has fluctuated over the years of our anlaysis. By 2003 there is little systematic variation in carbon tax burdens across regions of the country.

Inflation and the User Cost of Capital: Does Inflation Still Matter?

In the late 1970s, many economists argued that the deleterious effects of inflation on the user cost of capital for U.S. firms were large. Since that time, the tax code has changed, the level of inflation has dropped significantly, and the of investment has evolved considerably. In this paper, we demonstrate that the net effect of these changes has--under reasonable assumptions--not relegated inflation to the sidelines. Indeed, we conclude that: (1) inflation, even at its relatively low current rates, continues to increase the user cost of capital significantly; (2) the marginal gain in investment in response to a percentage-point reduction in inflation is larger for lower levels of inflation; (3) the beneficial effects for steady-state consumption of lowering inflation even further than has been achieved to date would likely be significant; and (4) inflation has only a small impact on intratemporal distortion in the allocation of capital within the domestic business sector. We also show that the magnitude of the inflation effect on the user cost of capital is likely much smaller in open economies.

Distributional Impacts in a Comprehensive Climate Policy Package

This paper provides a simple analytic approach for measuring the burden of carbon pricing that does not require sophisticated and numerically intensive economic models but which is not limited to restrictive assumptions of forward shifting of carbon prices. We also show how to adjust for the capital income bias contained in the Consumer Expenditure Survey, a bias towards regressivity in carbon pricing due to underreporting of capital income in higher income deciles in the Survey. Many distributional analyses of carbon pricing focus on the uses-side incidence of carbon pricing. This is the differential burden resulting from heterogeneity in consumption across households. Once one allows for sources-side incidence (i.e. differential impacts of changes in real factor prices), carbon policies look more progressive. Perhaps more important than the findings from any one scenario, our results on the progressivity of the leading cap and trade proposals are robust to the assumptions made on the relative importance of uses and sources side heterogeneity.