Working Papers
1992
December 1, 1992
U.S. State and Local Government Finances Over the Current Cycle
Description: The recent slowdown in the U.S. economy has led to state and local government tax increases and expenditure cuts that have lowered aggregate demand, in contrast to earlier downturns when the sector provided significant automatic stabilizers. Several explanations for this change are examined, including the role of federal grants, mandates, tax revolts, and compensation. The first three factors are found to be relatively unimportant. There does, however, appear to have been a large change in relative compensation over the 1980s, which can account for much of the deterioration in finances.
December 1, 1992
Robustness of Macroeconomic Indicators of Capital Mobility
Description: The performance of macroeconomic indicators of capital mobility is examined in the context of an intertemporal equilibrium model of a small open economy. Recursive numerical solution methods are used to compute measures of consumption smoothing, savings-investment correlation, and the variability and output-correlation of investment that characterize the model in the presence of income disturbances. None of these statistics is a reliable indicator of capital mobility unless information regarding differences in preferences, technology, and the nature of stochastic shocks can be taken into account.
December 1, 1992
Macroeconomic Models for the PC+L862
Description: This paper describes a computer program with which one can build macroeconomic models. It is possible to specify up to eighteen behavioral equations, each with between five and eleven independent variables. For certain variables, the user can decide whether they will be endogenous or exogenous. Many policy simulations dealing with adjustment and growth issues can be performed with this program by varying any of the exogenous variables, and these experiments can be repeated for different model specifications. This paper describes a number of experiments with a model of an open economy where output and prices are endogenous.
December 1, 1992
The Volatility of Consumption in a Simple General Equilibrium Model
Description: This paper studies the volatility of consumption relative to output in the context of a simple general equilibrium model of a small open economy subject to exogenous shocks in productivity. With infinite horizons and exogenous relative prices, the model generates variance estimates that are well above what can be observed in empirical data. While finite horizons and endogenous terms of trade reduce the volatility of consumption, the model fails to generate sufficient serial correlation with respect to the consumption growth rate. If the household’s decision problem is modified to take into account durability and adjustment costs, the model does well on both dimensions.
December 1, 1992
Tax Policy and Trade Liberalization: An Application to Mexico
Description: We construct a dynamic general equilibrium model of an open economy and use it to examine issues of trade liberalization in Mexico. In particular, we consider the fiscal implications of quotas and tariffs and, accordingly, their removal. We show that, in the short run, there may be negative revenue effects from tariff liberalization, so that it may be necessary to raise domestic taxes to compensate for the tariff reduction. We also show that these results are highly sensitive to behavioral shifts in exports. Since such shifts are quite likely given the nature of the trade reform currently being undertaken, it is important that we qualify our results accordingly.
December 1, 1992
Testing the Neoclassical Theory of Economic Growth: A Panel Data Approach
Description: Several recent empirical studies have examined determinants of economic growth using country average (cross-section) data. In contrast, this paper employs a technique for using a panel of both cross-section and time-series data for 98 industrial and developing countries over 1960-85 to determine the quantitative importance for economic growth of both country-specific and time-varying factors such as human capital, public investment, and outward-oriented trade policies. The empirical results provide support for the view that these factors exert a positive and significant influence on economic growth. They also provide estimates of the speed at which the gap in real per capita income between rich and poor countries is likely to be reduced over the longer term.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 40, No. 3, September 1993.
December 1, 1992
Risk-Taking and Optimal Taxation with Nontradable Human Capital
Description: What are the effects of taxation on individual/entrepreneurs’ risk-taking behavior? This paper re-examines this old question in a continuous time life-cycle model. We demonstrate that the stream of uncertain income from human capital has systematic effects on demand for the risky physical capital asset. If labor supply is inelastic and real wages are known with certainty, then a labor income tax will reduce holdings of the risky physical asset. However, if there are random fluctuations in labor income, then the effect depends on the nature of interaction between wage risk and investment income risk. A labor income tax may actually raise demand for the risky capital asset if human capital risk and physical capital risk are positively correlated. The idiosyncratic risk and nontradability of human capital also have implications for optimal taxation. When the insurance and disincentive effects are jointly taken into account, a Pareto efficient tax structure implies a strictly positive tax rate.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 40, No. 3, September 1993.
December 1, 1992
Money and Banking Statistics in Former Soviet Union (FSU) Economies
Description: This paper addresses the major issues concerning the compilation of money and banking statistics for the fifteen republics of the former Soviet Union (FSU), including (1) the treatment of ruble currency circulation and (2) the classification of claims on FSU financial institutions. The paper proposes the use of a monetary authorities’ account to encompass both the domestic and foreign aspects of ruble currency circulation and a classification scheme for monetary accounts that permits the construction of analytically meaningful monetary aggregates. These issues are addressed within an analytical framework that transforms the Gosbank Accounting System into monetary statistics broadly consistent with the Fund’s methodology.
Notes: Addresses the major issues concerning the compilation of money and banking statistics for the fifteen republics of the former Soviet Union (FSU).
December 1, 1992
Inflation and Fiscal Deficits: The Irrelevance of Debt and Money Financing
Description: The purpose of this paper is to present a model that circumvents the requirement of explicitly setting a period in which the fiscal budget is to be balanced, yet implies that increases in the growth of public debt are bound to increase inflation when there is no perceived commitment to reduce the fiscal deficit. The model is based on a modified version of the cash in advance constraint. The results of numerical simulations suggest that an increase in the growth of debt to finance current consumption leads to an equal increase in inflation. The timing of this increase varies with the size of the deficit and the pace of economic growth. It is shown that small increases in small deficits yield fairly significant increases in inflation. Three policy conclusions are offered.
December 1, 1992
Financial Development and Economic Growth
Description: This paper examines the empirical relationship between long–run growth and the degree of financial development, proxied by the ratio of bank credit to the private sector as a fraction of GDP. We find that this proxy enters significantly and with a positive sign in growth regressions on a large cross–country sample, but with a negative sign using panel data for Latin America. Our findings suggest that the main channel of transmission from financial development to growth is the efficiency of investment, rather than its volume. We also present a model where the negative correlation between financial intermediation and growth results from financial liberalization in a poor regulatory environment.