Fiscal Expansions, Unemployment, and Labor Force Participation
Fiscal Expansions, Unemployment, and Labor Force Participation

Author: Markus Bruckner

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Structural VARs indicate that for many OECD countries labor force participation, employment, and the unemployment rate significantly increase following increases in government expenditures under a variety of specifications and identification schemes. Fiscal expansions also tend to increase real wages. Existing models have difficulties in generating such responses. We show that the empirical regularities can be reproduced with two additions into a standard New Keynesian model with matching frictions: (a) a labor force participation choice and (b) workers' heterogeneity.

Supply and Demand Effects of Unemployment Insurance Benefit Extensions: Evidence from U.S. Counties
Supply and Demand Effects of Unemployment Insurance Benefit Extensions: Evidence from U.S. Counties

Author: Klaus-Peter Hellwig

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-03-12

Total Pages: 35

ISBN-13: 1513572687

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

I use three decades of county-level data to estimate the effects of federal unemployment benefit extensions on economic activity. To overcome the reverse causality coming from the fact that benefit extensions are a function of state unemployment rates, I only use the within-state variation in outcomes to identify treatment effects. Identification rests on a differences-in-differences approach which exploits heterogeneity in county exposure to policy changes. To distinguish demand and supply-side channels, I estimate the model separately for tradable and non-tradable sectors. Finally I use benefit extensions as an instrument to estimate local fiscal multipliers of unemployment benefit transfers. I find (i) that the overall impact of benefit extensions on activity is positive, pointing to strong demand effects; (ii) that, even in tradable sectors, there are no negative supply-side effects from work disincentives; and (iii) a fiscal multiplier estimate of 1.92, similar to estimates in the literature for other types of spending.

Hysteresis in Labor Markets? Evidence from Professional Long-Term Forecasts
Hysteresis in Labor Markets? Evidence from Professional Long-Term Forecasts

Author: Mr.John C Bluedorn

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2019-05-23

Total Pages: 22

ISBN-13: 1498315690

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

We explore the long-term impact of economic booms on labor market outcomes using a novel approach based on revisions to professional forecasts over the past 30 years for 34 advanced economies. We find that when employment rises unexpectedly, forecasters typically raise their long-term forecasts of employment by more than one-for-one and also expect a strong rise in labor force participation, suggesting more persistent effects than is traditionally assumed. Economic booms associated with changes in aggregate demand, when inflation is rising and unemployment falling unexpectedly, also come with persistent long-term effects on expected employment and labor force participation, suggesting positive hysteresis. Our forecast evaluation tests indicate that forecasters are, on average, unbiased in their assessment of these positive, persistent effects.

Unemployment in a Prosperous Economy
Unemployment in a Prosperous Economy

Author: William G. Bowen

Publisher:

Published: 1965

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A joint project of the Industrial Relations Section, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, [and] The Princeton University Conference.

Labor Supply Response to the Earned Income Tax Credit
Labor Supply Response to the Earned Income Tax Credit

Author: Nada Eissa

Publisher:

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 72

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

In a series of major expansions starting in 1987, the earned income tax credit (EITC) has become a central part of the federal government's anti-poverty strategy. In this paper, we examine the impact of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86), which included an expansion of the EITC, on labor force participation and hours of work. The expansion of the credit affected an easily identifiable group, single women with children, but is predicted to have had no effect on another group, single women without children. Other features of TRA86, such as the increase in the value of dependent exemptions and the large increase in the standard deduction for head of household filers, are predicted by economic theory to have reinforced the impact of the EITC on the relative labor supply outcomes of single women with and without children. We therefore compare the change in labor supply of single women with children to the change in labor supply of single women without children. We find that between 1984-1986 and 1988-1989 single women with children increased their labor force participation by 1.4 percentage points (from a base of 73.1 percent) relative to single women without children. We explore a number of possible explanations for this finding and conclude that the 1987 expansion of the EITC and the other provisions of TRA86 are the most likely explanations. We find no effect of the EITC expansion on the hours of work of single women with children who were already in the labor force. Compared to other elements of the welfare system, the EITC appears to produce little distortion of work incentives.

Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis
Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis

Author: Alberto Alesina

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2013-06-25

Total Pages: 596

ISBN-13: 022601844X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The recent recession has brought fiscal policy back to the forefront, with economists and policy makers struggling to reach a consensus on highly political issues like tax rates and government spending. At the heart of the debate are fiscal multipliers, whose size and sensitivity determine the power of such policies to influence economic growth. Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis focuses on the effects of fiscal stimuli and increased government spending, with contributions that consider the measurement of the multiplier effect and its size. In the face of uncertainty over the sustainability of recent economic policies, further contributions to this volume discuss the merits of alternate means of debt reduction through decreased government spending or increased taxes. A final section examines how the short-term political forces driving fiscal policy might be balanced with aspects of the long-term planning governing monetary policy. A direct intervention in timely debates, Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis offers invaluable insights about various responses to the recent financial crisis.

Hysteresis and Business Cycles
Hysteresis and Business Cycles

Author: Ms.Valerie Cerra

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2020-05-29

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13: 1513536990

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Traditionally, economic growth and business cycles have been treated independently. However, the dependence of GDP levels on its history of shocks, what economists refer to as “hysteresis,” argues for unifying the analysis of growth and cycles. In this paper, we review the recent empirical and theoretical literature that motivate this paradigm shift. The renewed interest in hysteresis has been sparked by the persistence of the Global Financial Crisis and fears of a slow recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. The findings of the recent literature have far-reaching conceptual and policy implications. In recessions, monetary and fiscal policies need to be more active to avoid the permanent scars of a downturn. And in good times, running a high-pressure economy could have permanent positive effects.

Okun's Law, Development, and Demographics: Differences in the Cyclical Sensitivities of Unemployment Across Economy and Worker Groups
Okun's Law, Development, and Demographics: Differences in the Cyclical Sensitivities of Unemployment Across Economy and Worker Groups

Author: Zidong An

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2021-11-12

Total Pages: 22

ISBN-13: 1616356049

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The negative and stable relationship between an economy’s aggregate demand conditions and overall unemployment is well-documented. We show that there is a large degree of heterogeneity in the cyclical sensitivities of unemployment across worker and economy groups. First, unemployment is more than twice as sensitive to aggregate demand in advanced as in emerging market and developing economies. Second, youth’s unemployment is twice as sensitive as that of adults’. Third, women’s unemployment is significantly less sensitive to demand than men’s in advanced economies. These findings point to the highly unequal impacts of the business cycle across worker and economy groups.