Fiscal Policy with Heterogeneous Agents Macro
Fiscal Policy with Heterogeneous Agents Macro

Author: Ozlem Kina

Publisher:

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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This thesis is composed of three essays, and contributes to the literature on optimal design of tax and transfers schemes in heterogeneous agents general equilibrium models. In the first chapter, Redistributive Capital Taxation Revisited, coauthored with Ctirad Slavik and Hakki Yazici, we use a rich quantitative model with endogenous skill acquisition to show that capital-skill complementarity provides a quantitatively significant rationale to tax capital for redistributive governments. The optimal capital income tax rate is 67%, while it is 61% in an identically calibrated model without capital-skill complementarity. The skill premium falls from 1.9 to 1.84 along the transition following the optimal reform in the capital-skill complementarity model, implying substantial indirect redistribution from skilled to unskilled workers. These results show that a redistributive government should take into account capital-skill complementarity when taxing capital. In the second chapter, Optimal Taxation of Automation, I focus on the asymmetric effects of automation on labor markets. I provide a general equilibrium model that distinguishes between low-and high-skill automation to study optimal taxation of those technologies. Low-skill (high-skill) automation generates a downward pressure on low-skill (high-skill) wages. Modeling the two types of automation is important as both are empirically relevant, and each has a different impact on wages of workers with different skill types. I calibrate the model to the US economy along several dimensions, and find that for a given level of technology, it is optimal to distort automation adoption in order to compress wage inequality and increase labor share of income to provide redistribution. In particular, it is optimal to tax low-skill automation while subsidize high-skill automation when the transitional dynamics are taken into account. As a result, consumption inequality and both before and after-tax income inequality decline and labor share of income increases relative to status-quo over transition. In the third chapter, On the Implications of Unemployment Insurance and Universal Basic Income in a Frictional Labor Market, I revisit the efficiency and equality considerations regarding the optimal provision of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits when workers' outside options vary substantially. The chapter aims to make comparisons between UI and universal basic income (UBI) policies to investigate whether UBI could be a tool to improve workers' hand in the wage setting and how transfers to unemployed -UI or UBI - and taxes impact the wage setting outcome across income distribution.

Essays on Macroeconomic Policies in Heterogeneous Agent Models
Essays on Macroeconomic Policies in Heterogeneous Agent Models

Author: Alaïs Martin-Baillon

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13:

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It is now recognized that the heterogeneity of economic agents plays a crucial role in understanding the fluctuations of an economy. The different chapters of my thesis serve the same question: How does heterogeneity changes the way economic policies should be conducted? Today, heterogeneous-agent macroeconomics is developing in several directions, each shedding different light on the problems we face as economists. My thesis is at the confluence of the different facets of this field. The first chapter of my thesis, participates in the heterogeneous agent macroeconomics that derives analytical solutions in reduced-heterogeneity models. I study how governments should increase or decrease taxes on firms over the business cycle. I show that taking into account firms heterogeneity greatly changes tax policy recommendations. The second chapter of my thesis is part of quantitative heterogeneous agent macroeconomics. We study whether monetary policy should use its ability to redistribute wealth among heterogenous households to achieve its objectives. The third chapter of my thesis participates in field that uses micro data to understand macroeconomics and to design public policies. I estimate firms' propensities to invest to better understand how economic policies can vary firms' investment by varying their income.

Essays on Macroeconomic Policy with Heterogeneous Agents, and Digital Assets
Essays on Macroeconomic Policy with Heterogeneous Agents, and Digital Assets

Author: Antzelos Kyriazis

Publisher:

Published: 2023

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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This dissertation has three chapters. In the first chapter, I build a three-agent preferred-habitat New Keynesian (PHANK) model. I show that the fiscal multiplier decreases in the presence of countercyclical QE policies after a fiscal expansion since countercyclical QE implies that the central bank sells government bonds, leading to higher expected returns on these bonds, which in turn incentivizes the bondholders to save more. However, since bondholders save more, they consume less, and as a result, consumption inequality between the savers and the non-savers falls, but wealth inequality increases. The qualitative results are similar in a medium-scale heterogeneous agents New Keynesian (HANK) model. In the three-agent model, I also solve for the optimal fiscal and QE policies at the zero lower bound, and I find that both are expansionary. The optimal increase in central bank asset purchases allows the government to increase government spending by less relative to the case where QE follows a countercyclical rule, so lower tax revenues are needed. In the second chapter, I study how US QE programs affect the US economy and the emerging market economies regarding their macro aggregates and asset prices. First, using Bayesian VAR models, I find that expansionary QE has positive and statistically significant effects in the US economy and the emerging market economies; real GDP, real investment, the price level, and asset prices rise. However, in emerging market economies, the currencies appreciate, the current account-to-GDP ratios deteriorate, the money supply increases, and the government bond yields increase. Then, I build a two-country HANK model that matches the empirical responses. Through the model, I examine how wealth inequality evolves both in the US economy and in the emerging market economy after a positive QE shock. Wealth inequality increases in the short run but decreases over the medium run in both countries. Also, I study the effects of policies that aim to reduce the leverage in the financial sector of the emerging market economy, such as capital controls, and I find that this policy indeed reduces the capital flows and leverage. However, economic activity also falls, and the welfare effects are mixed across households.The last chapter resulted from my strong interest in digital assets that emerged during my last year in the program. In this chapter, which results from collaborative work with Iason Ofeidis, Georgios Palaiokrassas, and Leandros Tassiulas, we examine the effects of unexpected changes in US monetary policy on digital asset returns, and on DeFi-related variables such as borrowing rates, outstanding debt, and TVL. We also examine the effects that the FOMC statement releases and the Minutes releases have on the volatility of digital asset returns. Finally, we examine how DeFi activity evolves around the FOMC announcements. The results from this chapter show first that the returns on digital assets are significantly affected by the unexpected part of the FOMC announcements. The volatility of the returns is also significantly affected by the FOMC releases but less significantly affected by the Minutes releases. Second, the DeFi-related variables are also affected by unexpected changes in monetary policy. Lastly, we find that the most significant spikes in DeFi activity occur on the FOMC announcement days or days very close to the announcement days.

Macroeconomic Policies and Agent Heterogeneity
Macroeconomic Policies and Agent Heterogeneity

Author: Charles Gottlieb

Publisher:

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 90

ISBN-13:

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This thesis contributes to the understanding of macroeconomic policies' impact on the distribution of wealth. It belongs to the strand of literature that departs from the representative agent assumption and perceives agent heterogeneity and the induced disparities in wealth accumulation, as an important dimension of economic policy-making. Within such economic environment, this thesis analyses the impact of three macroeconomic policies, namely monetary policy under the form of inflation targeting, fiscal policy under the form of asymmetric transfers, and finally retirement policies by shedding light on how household allocate their financial wealth over the life cycle. The first chapter of this thesis explores whether a higher inflation target induces more households to hold real assets rather than money holdings, thereby leading to a higher aggregate capital stock. It shows that a higher inflation target can lead to welfare improvements, when the economy is parametrized to US data. Such policy shows to be welfare improving, as the higher stock of aggregate capital reduces the real interest rate, which improves the welfare of indebted households. The second chapter of this thesis is joint work with A. Fagereng and L. Guiso. It provides novel empirical evidence on the life cycle patterns of the extensive and the intensive margin of stock market participation over the life-cycle. Also we provide a model that replicates the life cycle patterns of the conditional risky share and the participation rate, by introducing a fixed per period cost friction and a limited trust friction. In the third chapter, co-authored with M. Froemel, we analyse whether asymmetric transfer policies can be a pertinent short run policy instrument to overcome distortions arising from the lack of insurance opportunities for households due to financial market incompleteness. We show that asymmetric transfers can improve welfare, when transfer programs are pro-borrowers rather than lump-sum or pro-lenders.

NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2017
NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2017

Author: Martin Eichenbaum

Publisher: University of Chicago Press Journals

Published: 2018-05-22

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780226577661

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Volume 32 of the NBER Macroeconomics Annual features six theoretical and empirical studies of important issues in contemporary macroeconomics, and a keynote address by former IMF chief economist Olivier Blanchard. In one study, SeHyoun Ahn, Greg Kaplan, Benjamin Moll, Thomas Winberry, and Christian Wolf examine the dynamics of consumption expenditures in non-representative-agent macroeconomic models. In another, John Cochrane asks which macro models most naturally explain the post-financial-crisis macroeconomic environment, which is characterized by the co-existence of low and nonvolatile inflation rates, near-zero short-term interest rates, and an explosion in monetary aggregates. Manuel Adelino, Antoinette Schoar, and Felipe Severino examine the causes of the lending boom that precipitated the recent U.S. financial crisis and Great Recession. Steven Durlauf and Ananth Seshadri investigate whether increases in income inequality cause lower levels of economic mobility and opportunity. Charles Manski explores the formation of expectations, considering the efficacy of directly measuring beliefs through surveys as an alternative to making the assumption of rational expectations. In the final research paper, Efraim Benmelech and Nittai Bergman analyze the sharp declines in debt issuance and the evaporation of market liquidity that coincide with most financial crises. Blanchard’s keynote address discusses which distortions are central to understanding short-run macroeconomic fluctuations.

Essays in Macroeconomic Theory
Essays in Macroeconomic Theory

Author: Antoine Camous

Publisher:

Published: 2015

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13:

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This thesis investigates the design of appropriate institutions to ensure the good conduct of fiscal and monetary policy. The three chapters develop theoretical frameworks to address the time-inconsistency of policy plans or prevent the occurrence of self-fulfilling prophecies. Time-inconsistency refers to a situation where preferences over policy change over time. Optimal policy plans are not credible, since agents anticipate the implementation of another policy in the future. This issue is particularly pervasive to monetary policy, since nominal quantities (price level, interest rates, etc.) are very sensitive to expected policies, but predetermined to actual policy choices. The first chapter investigates how fiscal policy can mitigate the inflation bias of monetary policy in an economy with heterogeneous agents. Whenever there is a desire for redistribution, progressive fiscal helps to implement a policy mix less biased toward inflation. Importantly, even the richest supports some fiscal progressivity, since over their life cycle, they benefit from a more balanced policy-mix. A self-fulfilling prophecy, or coordination failure, refers to a situation where a more desirable economic outcome could be reached, but fail to be, by the only effect of pessimistic expectations. Self-fulfilling debt crises are a classical example: pessimistic investors bid down the price of debt, which increases the likelihood of default, which in turn justifies the initial decrease in price. The second chapter, co-authored with Russell Cooper, asks whether monetary policy can deter self-fulfilling debt crises. The analysis shows how a counter-cyclical inflation policy with commitment is effective in doing so. Importantly, it can be implemented without endangering the primary objective of monetary policy, to deliver an inflation target for instance. The third chapter, co-authored with Andrew Gimber, revisits the classic Laffer curve coordination failure: taxes could be low, but they are high because agents anticipate high tax rates. In a dynamic environment with debt issuance, the multiplicity of equilibria critically depends on inherited debt. At high levels of public debt, fiscal policy is pro-cyclical: taxes increase when output decreases, and self-fulfilling fiscal crisis can occur. Overall, this chapter sheds light on the perils of high level of public debt.