The long (and short) on taxation and expenditure policies

Much of the 1992 presidential campaign focused on which fiscal policies would best promote economic growth. In this article, Zsolt Becsi develops an analytical and graphical framework to evaluate the long- and short-run effects of a variety of taxation and expenditure policies. ; Becsi shows that many tax schemes in their macro-economic effects are essentially taxes on labor or capital or both. While taxes on labor and capital both tend to depress private consumption and output in the long run, Becsi shows that a revenue-neutral reduction of capital taxes and increase in labor taxes are likely to be contractionary in the short run and expansionary in the long run. ; Becsi discusses several ways of spending the peace dividend from a reduction in defense expenditures. He shows that use of the dividend to reduce capital taxes causes consumption to rise in the long run with ambiguous effects on output. In the short run, output and consumption will move in opposite directions, but whether output rises or falls is uncertain. Using the peace dividend to increase public investment will also promote a long-run rise of consumption with ambiguous long-run output effects, but without short-run contractionary effects.Taxation ; Expenditures, Public

Indicators of the general price level and inflation

This article examines whether price indexes, such as the CPI, the PPI, and the implicit price deflator for GDP (PGDP), tell a consistent story about the general price level and inflation rate. To this end, Zsolt Becsi analyzes the time series properties of these indexes. He finds that the PGDP has a stable long-term relationship with both of the other price indexes. Some evidence suggests that PGDP and CPI inflation have common long-run trends, while PPI inflation has no discernible stable long-run relationship with either PGDP or CPI inflation. ; Some theories suggest that the price level relevant for monetary policy is broader than price indexes of final goods and services such as the PGDP. This article investigates whether the PGDP captures movements in other price or inflation series. There is weak evidence that the PGDP shares common trends with the price levels and inflation rates of some intermediate goods and assets. Overall, these results suggest that PGDP makes a good indicator of the general price level for monetary policy because it reflects shocks to a broad range of other series.Inflation (Finance) ; Prices

Does Wealth Imply Secularization and Longevity?

We develop a simple life cycle model with endogenous longevity where religious firms influence religious beliefs using donations as an input. The model suggests that either wealth and economic development or competition by religious firms can explain cross-country variation in religious beliefs, but to explain cross-country variation in religious beliefs, longevity, and consumption both development and competition are required. Our results depend on the wealth and substitution effects that accompany economic development and religious market competition

Violence and Capital

We introduce a survival contest with lethal violence into a simple overlapping generations model with production and characterize how such violence interacts with capital along the equilibrium path. We find that shocks to economic fundamentals can have a variety of effects on the steady state levels of capital and violence, thus, explaining observed variation in development-violence outcomes. We also show that violence and capital are always negatively related along the adjustment path to steady state

Financial matchmakers in credit markets with heterogeneous borrowers

What happens when liquidity increases in credit markets and more funds are channeled from borrowers to lenders? We examine this question in a general equilibrium model where financial matchmakers help borrowers (firms) and lenders (households) search out and negotiate profitable matches and where the composition of heterogeneous borrowers adjusts to satisfy equilibrium entry conditions. We find that enhanced liquidity causes entry by all borrowers and tends to benefit low-quality borrowers disproportionately. However, liquid credit markets may or may not be associated with higher output and welfare. The result is determined by whether the effect of higher market participation outweighs that of lower average quality. The net effect depends crucially on the source of the liquidity shock (financial matching efficacy, productivity, or entry barriers).Game theory ; Financial markets ; Liquidity (Economics)

Credit Mismatch and Breakdown

This paper studies the phenomenon of mismatch in a decentralized credit market where borrowers and lenders must engage in costly search to establish credit relationships. Our dynamic general equilibrium framework integrates incentive based informational frictions with a matching process highlighted by (i) borrowers’ endogenous market entry and exit decision (entry frictions) and (ii) time and resource costs necessary to locate credit opportunities (search frictions). A key feature of the incentive compatible loan contract negotiated between borrowers and lenders is the interaction of informational frictions (in the form of moral hazard) with entry and search frictions. We find that the removal of entry barriers can eliminate information-based equilibrium credit rationing. More generally, entry and incentive frictions are important in understanding the extent of credit rationing, while entry and search frictions are important for understanding credit market breakdown.Entry, Moral Hazard, Credit Rationing, Credit Mismatch, Credit-Market Breakdown