Expansionary Fiscal Contractions?

We examine the usefulness of the Expansionary Fiscal Contrac- tion hypothesis in explaining the performance of the Irish and Danish economies. We find some evidence in favour of a weak version of the EFC hypotheisis - If the budget deficit is reduced in response to a fis- cal crisis, consumption does seem to increase. However this increase is not enough to offset the direct effect of a reduction in the deficit on output-fiscal contractions are not literally expansionary.

Wage Aspirations and Unemployment Persistence

The reservation wage is an integral part of most theories of involuntary unemployment. We use panel data to examine the empirical determinants of the reservation wage - in particular the influence of previous wages - and consider what this implies for the evolution of the natu- ral rate of unemployment. We find that previous wages have a significant but relatively small effect on reservation wages (an elasticity between 0.15 and 0.47). We also find considerable differences across genders with previous wages being more important for men and market wages being more important for women. Overall our results suggest that unemployment will adjust relatively quickly to shocks.Unemployment Duration; Wages

The Behaviour of Inflation and Unemployment in the United States

Low rates of inflation have been recorded in the United States in recent years despite a decline in the unemployment rate. This phenomenon could be the result of a series of transitory shocks or of a permanent change in the structure of the economy leading to a lower NAIRU. The paper suggests that while the NAIRU may have fallen slightly, it has not fallen by an amount sufficient to explain the recent behaviour of inflation. The main explanation for recent inflation performance appears to be that there have been favorable price shocks; in particular, the cost of imports has fallen sharply as the dollar has appreciated.Inflation, Philips Curve

Do Taxes cause Unemployment?

In the long run the economic incidence of a tax is unaffected by whether a tax is levied on workers, consumers or firms. In the short run, however, with wages and prices not fully flexible the incidence may be different. We test this hypothesis using aggregate time series data and examine the implications of tax incidence for the level and persistence of unemployment.

The Determinants of the Reservation Wage

Most theories of involuntary unemployment predict that the equilibrium wage in the labor market will be greater than the reservation wage of the unemployed. These theories concentrate on explaining why the labor market does not clear, with the market wage falling to the level of the reservation wage, as predicted by the classical paradigm. Relatively little, however, has been said about the behavior of reservation wages. This paper seeks to fill the gap in the literature. We look at the empirical determinants of the reservation wage and suggest what this implies for the evolution of the natural rate of unemployment.

Measuring the NAIRU – A Structural VAR Approach

We calculate the NAIRU for the U.S. in a framework where inflation and the unemployment rate can respond to each other. The NAIRU is defined as the component of the actual unemployment rate that is uncorrelated with inflation in the long run. Using a structural VAR approach, the NAIRU and core inflation can be estimated simultaneously. Our estimation results show that the NAIRU falls dramatically at the end of 1990s and the long run vertical Phillips Curve shifts back from 6.8 per cent before 1997 to 4 per cent afterwards.

Education Choice under Uncertainty - Implications for Public Policy

We analyse how progressive taxation and education subsidies affect schooling decisions when the returns to education are stochastic. We use the theory of real options to solve the problem of education choice in a dynamic stochastic model. We show that education attainment will be an increasing function of the risk associated with education. Furthermore, this result holds regardless of the degree of risk aversion. We also show that progressive taxes will tend to increase education attainment.Education Choice; Dynamic Optimization, Optimal Stopping, Uncertainty

Using Heteroscedasticity to Estimate the Returns to Education

We apply a new estimator to the measurement of the economic returns to education. We control for endogenous education, unobserved ability and measurement error using only the natural heteroscedasticty of wages and education attainment. Our prefered estimate, 6.07%, is closer to the OLS estimate but smaller (and more precise) than the estimates typically reported by studies that use IV. Our results indicate that the biases generated by unobserved ability and measurement error tend to cancel each other out as suggested by Griliches (1977). We also present Monte Carlo evidence to show that the finite sample bias our estimator is small.Identification; Returns to Education

Education Choice under Uncertainty and Public Policy

We analyse how progressive taxation and education subsidies affect schooling deci- sions when the returns to education are stochastic. We use the theory of real options to solve the problem of education choice in a dynamic, life-cycle consistent, stochastic model. We show that education attainment will be an increasing function of the risk associated with education. Furthermore, this result holds whether or not agents can borrow in order to pay for education and regardless of the degree of risk aversion. We also examine the link between consumption over the life-cycle and education choice to show that higher initial wealth will usually - but not always - have a positive effect on education attainment. Finally we show that progressive taxes will tend to reduce education attainment for the poor but increase it for the rich.Education Choice; Dynamic Optimization, Optimal Stopping, Uncertainty

Productivity Growth and Inflation - A Multi-Country Study

Ball and Moffitt (2001) present a theory implying that the gap between productivity and wage aspirations can shift the traditional Phillips Curve. We examine their theory within the OECD. The results show that there is no clear cross country evidence for the theory. Although Ball and Moffitt’s model works well in the U.S., it cannot, in general, be applied to other OECD countries. The time- varying NAIRU can better explain the economic performance for the OECD overall, and the UK in particular, during the late 1990s. In Germany, traditional Phillips Curve still kept its explanatory power during this period.