Is state fiscal policy asymmetric over the business cycle?

A number of stabilizers are thought to mute the business cycle. One key stabilizer is federal fiscal policy. The federal budget surplus tends to rise during economic booms and fall in downturns, helping to stabilize consumers’ disposable income and thereby mitigate economic fluctuations. During booms, for example, the budget surplus typically rises because tax revenues rise more than expenditures.> Another stabilizer that has traditionally received less attention is state fiscal policy. Like the federal budget surplus, state government surpluses tend to rise during economic expansions and decline during downturns. Moreover, like the federal budget, state budgets represent large shares of the economy. The stabilizing influence of state fiscal policy, however, may differ across business cycle expansions and downturns – making state fiscal policy asymmetric. For example, state budgets could be more effective at mitigating economic slumps than at muting booms if taxes fall more sharply during a slump than they rise in an expansion of equal magnitude. Asymmetry in fiscal policy could be caused by a number of factors, such as balanced budget rules, which are constitutionally imposed restrictions on a state government’s ability to incur debt.> Sorensen and Yosha examine the business cycle behavior of state fiscal policy to determine whether policy is asymmetric and, if so, to identify the causes. They conclude that state revenue and expenditure display significant asymmetry over the business cycle, with nearly offsetting effects on the budget surplus. As a result, state fiscal policy tends to mute economic booms to roughly the same degree it mitigates slowdowns. The asymmetries in revenue and expenditure appear to be associated with balanced budget rules, although their fundamental causes cannot be clearly identified.Fiscal policy ; Business cycles

Is risk sharing in the United States a regional phenomenon?

Regions within the United States routinely experience economic fluctuations that differ from those of other regions. For example, in the past few years, falling wheat prices have slowed growth in the value of total output in Kansas. Such developments can pose concerns for policymakers because macroeconomic tools like monetary policy affect all regions, not just specific regions. Fortunately, several mechanisms help insulate regional income and consumption from region-specific output fluctuations. Diversification of asset ownership across regions, made possible by national capital markets, smoothes regional income and, in turn, consumption. The federal tax system also helps protect regional income and consumption from region- specific changes in output. Finally, adjustments to saving further insulate consumption from variation in output. In effect, each of these mechanisms mitigates the effect of region-specific economic fluctuations by pooling risks across regions--by providing risk sharing.> Although earlier research has documented the pattern of risk sharing for the United States as a whole, patterns may differ across broad regions of the nation. Eastern states, for example, may benefit more from income smoothing through capital markets due to their proximity to Wall Street. Moreover, geographic distance may affect whether and how risk is shared. For instance, it may be easier for Kansas residents to own property, such as a farm or hotel, in Colorado than in Massachusetts. Similarly, business owners in Kansas are more likely to obtain loans in Missouri than in New York. In this case, geography may affect the ability of risk sharing to mitigate region-specific fluctuations in output. Because geography matters, this article examines whether risk sharing occurs more in some regions than in others and whether risk sharing is greater within large regions of the United States than between regions.> Sorensen and Yosha present the conceptual framework of risk sharing and develop a method for estimating the amount of risk sharing provided by different mechanisms. They report estimates of risk sharing patterns within and across a set of large U.S. regions. These estimates reveal some important regional differences. Moreover, the estimates indicate there is more overall risk sharing within regions than between regions. The risk sharing provided by capital markets and the federal tax system is essentially the same within and across regions, implying that these are nationwide mechanisms. In contrast, risk sharing through saving adjustments is more local, occurring just within regions.Risk

Evaluating the Probability of Failure of a Banking Firm

We develop a dynamic model in which the probability of failure of an infinitely lived financial intermediary (bank) is determined endogenously as a function of observable state and policy variables. The bank takes into account the effect of the optimal policy (the interest on deposits, dividend payouts, risky investments) on the probability of failure, which in turn affects the bank's ability to extract deposits. With the aid of simulations we study the effect of variables such as bank size, the riskiness of the bank's investment opportunities, and reserve requirements on the bank's optimal policy and on its probability of failure. A major finding is that small banks choose policies that render them more risky than large banks. As the risks are correctly priced by depositors, rates offered by small banks incorporate substantial risk premia. Another interesting finding is that a tighter reserve requirement induces banks of all sizes to take fewer risks.

Why Does Capital Flow to Rich States?

The magnitude and the direction of net international capital flows does not fit neo-classical models. The 50 U.S. states comprise an integrated capital market with very low barriers to capital flows, which makes them an ideal testing ground for neoclassical models. We develop a simple frictionless open economy model with perfectly diversified ownership of capital and find that capital flows between the U.S. states are consistent with the model. Therefore, the small size and "wrong" direction of net international capital flows are likely due to frictions associated with national borders and not due to inherent flaws in the neoclassical model.

Asymmetric Shocks and Risk Sharing in a Monetary Union: Updated Evidence and Policy Implications for Europe

We find that risk sharing in the European Union (EU) has been increasing over the past decade due to increased cross-ownership of assets across countries. Industrial special- ization has also been increasing over the last decade and we conjecture that risk sharing plays an important causal effect by allowing countries to specialize without being subject to higher income risk even though the variability of output may increase. We believe that lower trade barriers may not have played a dominant causal role during this decade be- cause the effect of lower trade barriers has probably already played itself out. We further find that the asymmetry of GDP fluctuations in the EU has declined steeply over the last two decades. This may be due to economic policies becoming more similar as countries were adjusting fiscal policy in order to meet the Maastricht criteria, but a similar result was found for U.S. states so the finding may be due to a different nature of the shocks to the world economy in the 1990s. We expect to see a further rise in risk sharing between EU countries, accompanied by more specialization. However, the resulting increase in GDP asymmetry should be minor and will have small welfare costs because increased risk sharing should lower income (GNP) asymmetry.financial integration, regional specialization, international portfolio diversification, income insurance

International Risk Sharing and European Monetary Unification

We explore income and consumption smoothing patterns among European Community countries and among OECD countries during the period 1966-90. We find that for OECD as well as for EC countries about 40 percent of shocks to GDP are smoothed at the one year frequency, with about half the smoothing achieved through national government budget deficits and half by corporate saving. At the three year differencing frequency only 25 percent of shocks to GDP are smoothed, mainly via government lending and borrowing. In the absence of alternative income and consumption smoothing mechanisms, the restrictions on budget deficits imposed by the Maastricht Treaty should be relaxed to allow governments to run large temporary deficits in response to output shocks.Europe risk, international monetary system

Risk Sharing and Sectoral Specialization: Regional and International Evidence

We provide empirical evidence that risk sharing enhances specialization in production. To the best of our knowledge, this well-established and important theoretical proposition has not been tested before. Our empirical procedure is summarized as follows. First, we construct a measure of specialization in production, and calculate an index of specialization for each of the European Community (EC) and non-EC OECD countries, U.S. states, Canadian provinces, Japanese prefectures, Latin American countries, and regions of Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Then, we estimate the degree of capital market integration (a measure of risk sharing) within each of these groups of regions: the EC countries, the non-EC OECD countries, the United States, Canada, Japan, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom (and rely on another author's estimate for Latin America). Finally, we perform a regression of the specialization index on the degree of risk sharing, controlling for relevant economic variables. We find a positive and significant relation between the degree of specialization of individual members of a group of countries, provinces, states, or prefectures, and the amount of risk that is shared within the group. We perform regressions using variables such as shareholder rights and the size of the financial sector (relative to GDP) as instruments for the amount of inter-regional risk sharing. These regressions confirm that risk sharing---facilitated by a favorable legal environment and a developed financial system---is a direct causal determinant of industrial specialization.

Consumption Smoothing through Fiscal Policy in OECD and EU Countries

We measure the amount of smoothing achieved through various components of the government deficit in EU and OECD countries. For EU countries, at the 1-year frequency percent of shocks to GDP are smoothed via government consumption, 18 percent via transfers percent via subsidies, while taxes provide no smoothing. The results for OECD countries are similar. Government transfers provide more smoothing of negative than of positive shocks among EU countries. There seems to be no trade-off between high government deficits in a country and the ability to smooth consumption. We find that in countries where there is delegation' of power or where fiscal targets are negotiated effectively by coalition members consumption smoothing via government consumption and government transfers is considerably higher. We interpret this finding as evidence that effective budgetary institutions can accomplish efficient consumption smoothing via government deficit spending and lower average deficits.