Jenny E. Ligthart

What Have We Learned from Three Decades of Research on the Productivity of Public Capital

The last three decades have witnessed a great deal of research effort devoted to measuring the private output elasticity of public capital. The wide range of available estimates have precluded any consensus so far, however. This paper reconciles the empirical findings of the literature by quantitatively analyzing a sample of 578 estimates collected from 68 studies for the 1983–2008 period. Using meta-regression analysis, we show how study design characteristics and publication bias can explain a large fraction of the variation across estimates. We find a short-run output elasticity of public capital supplied at the central government level of 0.083, which increases to 0.122 in the long run. If, in addition, only core infrastructure at a regional/local level of government is considered, these estimates are almost doubled. The average output elasticity of public capital amounts to 0.106. Our results suggest that public capital is undersupplied in OECD economies.

Coordinated Tax-Tariff Reforms, Informality, and Welfare Distribution

The paper studies the revenue, efficiency, and distributional implications of a simple strategy of offsetting tariff reductions with increases in destination-based consumption taxes so as to leave consumer prices unchanged. We employ a dynamic micro-founded macroeconomic model of a small open developing economy, which features an informal sector that cannot be taxed, a formal agricultural sector, and an import-substitution sector. The reform strategy increases government revenue, imports, exports, and the informal sector. In contrast to Emran and Stiglitz (2005), who ignore the dynamic effects of taxes and tariffs on factor markets, we find an efficiency gain, which is unevenly distributed. Existing generations benefit more than future generations, who - depending on pre-existing tax and tariff rates and the informal sector size - even may become worse off.

The Productivity of Public Capital: A Meta-analysis

The paper measures the contribution of public capital to private output using a simple meta-analysis and a meta-regression analysis based on panel data. We find an output elasticity of public capital of 0.14 in the random effects model, which is substantially smaller than the simple arithmetic average value of 0.20. Reported estimates of the output elasticity of public capital show considerable heterogeneity. We identify the type of public capital, the level of aggregation of the public capital data, the country type, the econometric specification, and publication bias as sources of variation.

The Macroeconomic Dynamics of Demographic Shocks

The paper employs an extended Yaari-Blanchard model of overlapping generations to study how the macroeconomy is affected over time by various demographic changes. It is shown that a proportional decline in fertility and death rates has qualitatively similar effects to capital income subsidies; both per capita savings and per capita consumption increase in the new steady state. A drop in the birth rate, while keeping the death rate constant, reduces per capita savings, but increases per capita consumption, particularly if intertemporal labor supply is very elastic. If the generational turnover effect is sufficiently strong, however, a decline in the birth rate may, contrary to standard results, gives rise to an increase in per capita savings. Finally, a fertility rate reduction which leaves unaffected the rate of generational turnover is shown to have effects qualitatively similar to those of a fall in public consumption. Both per capita savings and per capita output decline, but per capita consumption rises. The non-linear model is simulated to study the quantitative effects of non-infinitesimal demographic shocks.

Dynamic Panel Data Models Featuring Endogenous Interaction and Spatially Correlated Errors

We extend the three-step generalized methods of moments (GMM) approach of Kapoor, Kelejian, and Prucha (2007), which corrects for spatially correlated errors in static panel data models, by introducing a spatial lag and a one-period lag of the dependent variable as additional explanatory variables. Combining the extended Kapoor, Kelejian, and Prucha (2007) approach with the dynamic panel data model GMM estimators of Arellano and Bond (1991) and Blundell and Bond (1998) and supplementing the dynamic instruments by lagged and weighted exogenous variables as suggested by Kelejian and Robinson (1993) yields new spatial dynamic panel data estimators. The performance of these spatial dynamic panel data estimators is in- vestigated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. We show that differences in bias as well as root mean squared error between spatial GMM estimates and corresponding GMM estimates in which spatial error correlation is ignored are small.

Revenue Sharing and Information Exchange under Non-Discriminatory Taxation

The international exchange of tax information, and its merits compared to withholding taxes, is the central topic in current debates in international tax policy.The purpose of this paper is to characterize and compare the tax regimes that emerge with and without information exchange, under the assumption that countries are unable to differentiate between the taxes they apply to residents and non-residents.It focuses in particular on the role of asymmetries in country size (capturing a key feature of tax havens) and on the impact and potential desirability of schemes to share the revenue raised by withholding (as under the new EU savings tax arrangements) or (more innovatively) as a consequence of information exchange.It is shown that (irrespective of country size difference) Pareto efficiency requires that all revenue collected from nonresidents be transferred to the residence country which would require taking the EU practice even further from the norm, but is currently the norm in relation to information exchange.A withholding scheme with revenue fully reallocated in this way Pareto dominates information sharing, whatever the allocation under the latter. Comparing schemes in which there is no revenue sharing, however, shows that information exchange Pareto dominates simple withholding.

The Transitional Dynamics of Fiscal Policy in Small Open Economies

The paper studies the dynamic macroeconomic effects of fiscal shocks of various duration (permanent and temporary) under different financing methods (lump-sum tax and government debt). To this end, we develop an intertemporal macroeconomic model for a small open economy, featuring monopolistic competition in the intermediate goods market, endogenous (intertemporal) labor supply, and finitely lived households. Endogenous labor supply is crucial in generating cyclical adjustment paths and yields faster convergence to the new steady state compared with exogenous labor supply. The quantitative output effects and transitional dynamics of fiscal policy differ substantially from those of an infinitely lived representative agent model. In addition, government debt is key in making the timing of shocks matter, thus yielding permanent output effects of temporary fiscal shocks.

Tax Policy, the Macroeconomy, and Intergenerational Distribution

The paper studies the dynamic macroeconomic and welfare effects of tax policy in the context of an overlapping-generations model of the Yaari-Blanchard type for a closed economy. The model is extended to allow for endogenous labor supply and three tax instruments – namely, a capital tax, labor income tax, and consumption tax. It is shown that labor taxes increase welfare of old generations whereas capital and consumption taxes reduce their welfare.

Currency Invoicing in International Trade: A Panel Data Approach

The paper empirically investigates the determinants of currency invoicing in Dutch goods trade with OECD countries. To this end, a currency-share systems approach is employed, which is applied to quarterly panel data for 1987–1998. One of the key findings is that a country’s share of producer currency pricing falls if demand in the foreign export market falls. In addition, we find that the better developed the partner country’s banking sector and the larger its share in world trade, the lower is the share of Dutch guilder invoicing. A higher expected rate of inflation in the partner country increases Dutch guilder invoicing. The depth of the foreign exchange market of a currency, a country’s share in world trade, and a country being part of the European Union are key determinants of vehicle currency use.

The hiring subsidy cum firing tax in a search model of unemployment

Abstract We study the macroeconomic and welfare effects of a tax-subsidy scheme on labour in a model with search unemployment. In a second-best world welfare increases if unemployment is inefficiently high or if there are pre-existing fiscal distortions.