Andrew Feltenstein

Fiscal Policy, Monetary Targets, and the Price Level in a Centrally Planned Economy: An Application to the Case of China

This paper presents a planned-economy monetary model of China. A money supply equation links changes in broad money to government transactions evaluated at official prices. The demand for real money balances by consumers equals the nominal demand for money deflated by an unobserved true price index. The model explains money demand as the divergence between the then official and true price indices. Changes in the money supply are explained by government transactions, while money demand is explained by real income and the anticipated true rate of inflation. The true rate of inflation is 2.5 times the official rate. Copyright 1987 by Ohio State University Press.

The underground economy and its macroeconomic consequences

This study develops a dynamic general equilibrium model in which optimizing agents evade taxes by operating in the underground economy. The cost to firms of evading taxes is that they find themselves subject to credit rationing from banks. Our model simulations show that in the absence of budgetary flexibility to adjust expenditures, raising tax rates too high drives firms into the underground economy, thereby reducing the tax base. Aggregate investment in the economy is lowered because of credit rationing. Taxes that are too low eliminate the underground economy, but result in unsustainable budget and trade deficits. Thus, the optimal rate of taxation, from a macroeconomic point of view, may lead to some underground activity.

General Equilibrium Effects of Investment Incentives in Mexico

Mexico has experimented with several tax instruments designed to promote private capital formation. Among such initiatives were general and industry-specific tax credits, employment tax credits, and corporate tax credits. The authors examine relative efficacy of such instruments using a dynamic computable general equilibrium model. They carry out model simulations using three equal-yield investment incentive scenarios: increases in investment tax credits, increases in employment tax credits, and an equivalent reduction in the corporate tax rate. The authors present outlines of the tax policy environment with model details and they highlight alternate tax incentives regimes. Conclusions and summary results are provided by the authors.

An Analysis of the Optimal Provision of Public Infrastructure: A Computational Model Using Mexican Data

An intertemporal general equilibrium model is used to examine infrastructure effects on the Mexican national income. Production functions are estimated for the major sectors of the economy in which sectoral output depends on inputs of capital and labor, as well as the stocks of the public infrastructure. The analysis indicates that despite high estimated output elasticities with respect to public infrastructure, increased expenditure on infrastructure has rapidly decreasing benefits. Some benefits could be achieved by modest increases in capital expenditures, although at the cost of significantly higher inflation and real interest rates. The increase in real interest rates causes these benefits to be greatly reduced.

Exogenous Shocks, Contagion, and Bank Soundness: A Macroeconomic Framework

In a model where all banks are initially solvent, an exogenous shock affects confidence, causing a flight from deposits into domestic and foreign currency. Real interest rates increase unexpectedly, affecting firms and raising the share of the banks nonperforming assets. This contagion causes a bank run. Simulations show that compensatory monetary policy mitigates the bank run but causes macroeconomic imbalances. Combining compensatory monetary policy with tight fiscal policies slows the bank run and mitigates insolvency. A devaluation, combined with compensatory monetary policy, reduces insolvencies and increases the growth of real income, but at the cost of increased inflation.

Big Bang Versus Gradualism in Economic Reforms: An Intertemporal Analysis with an Application to China

This paper analyzes issues concerning the speed of adjustment and sequencing of reforms in a transition economy. It presents a dynamic general equilibrium model parameterized with Chinese data. The model is used to generate different policy simulations that highlight the importance of the policy instruments used during the transition period. The simulations consider privatization, tariff reform, and devaluation, as well as alternative speeds of introducing these policies. They show that different speeds of adjustment, as well as sequencing of reforms, will have very different implications for macroeconomic aggregates.

An intertemporal general equilibrium analysis of financial crowding out: A policy model and an application to Australia

This paper constructs a two-period, perfect foresight general equilibrium model that analyzes crowding out. Private investment is debt financed, while government deficits are financed by money and debt. The existence of equilibrium is demonstrated and the model is applied to Australia for 1981-1982, the last years for which Australia had a fixed exchange rate. A benchmark solution is derived and two counterfactual simulations are carried out. Small increases in real government spending are found not to lead to crowding out, while an increase in the debt financed portion of the governments budget deficit does lead to crowding out.

An Analysis of the Underground Economy and its Macroeconomic Consequences

This paper develops a dynamic computable general equilibrium model in which optimizing agents evade taxes by operating in the underground economy. The cost to firms of evading taxes is that they find themselves subject to credit rationing from banks. Our model simulations show that in the absence of budgetary flexibility to adjust expenditures, raising tax rates too high drives firms into the underground economy, thereby reducing the tax base. Aggregate investment in the economy is lowered because of credit rationing. Taxes that are too low eliminate the underground economy, but result in unsustainable budget and trade deficits. Thus, the optimal rate of taxation, from a macroeconomic point of view, may lead to some underground activity.

Bank Failures and Fiscal Austerity: Policy Prescriptions for a Developing Country

This work employs a dynamic general equilibrium model to evaluate the causes and implications of bank insolvencies. The model is applied to stylized data from several South Asian countries. It derives conclusions about policy instruments designed to alleviate the impact of insolvencies. Firms are subject to intertemporal solvency conditions, and the public withdraws deposits when borrowers default. If banks optimize by restricting credit to risky borrowers, these failures can be partially avoided. Numerical simulations conclude that the combination of compensating monetary policy and restrictive fiscal policy offers the best way of responding to a bank crisis caused by exogenous shocks.

Tax reform, the informal economy, and bank financing of capital formation

This paper develops a model that relates businesses’ entry into the underground economy to tax rates and the need to access the banking system. The model uses a dynamic approach in which both firms and banks optimize and in which the benefits to a firm of accessing the banking system are endogenous. A firm compares the return to capital with the marginal tax rate on capital income and uses the difference to determine how much of the tax to pay. At the same time, banks use a firm’s capital tax payments, combined with the capital tax rate to obtain an estimate of the firm’s minimum capital value. If the firm pays at least some taxes then it will have access to the banking system, which will allow it to finance investment. If the firm pays no taxes, then it cannot access the banks and cannot invest. We compare the equilibria resulting from tax compliance and tax evasion. We calibrate the model to a highly stylized version of the Russian economy, and analyze the effect of potential tax changes on the underground economy. We compute a dynamic equilibrium for our model, and note that it tracks the path of certain macroeconomic variables of the Russian economy (GDP, budget and trade balances, price level and interest rate) with some accuracy for the years 2001–2008. We are unable to track the underground economy, as this data is unobservable. We then carry out a series of counterfactual simulations, first asking if non-capital intensive firms have an incentive to evade taxes under existing value added tax rates. We find that they do, and that the incentive would have been greatly reduced if the value added tax rate had been selectively reduced for the non-capital intensive sectors. We then ask what the effect would be if the corporate tax rate were raised on capital intensive sectors. The simulations indicate that the capital intensive sectors would not increase their entry into the underground economy. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2013