Download or read book Expected Taxes and Household Consumption Behavior written by Lorenz Kueng and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dissertation I ask two basic questions: First, how predictable are personal income tax changes in the U.S. and second, does household consumption respond to news about future tax changes, or does it mostly respond at the time when the tax rates actually change? These are interesting questions because they have broad implications for macroeconomics and public economics. The rational-expectations life-cycle theory of consumption is the workhorse in modern macroeconomics. While there are various specifications of this theory, two predictions are common across them. First, consumption should not respond to predictable income changes and second, consumption should respond to news about future after-tax lifetime income. There is a large literature that tests the first implication of the rational-expectations life-cycle theory and generally rejects the model by finding significant consumption responses to predictable income changes -- that is, it finds that consumption is in fact excessively sensitive to predictable income changes. Very few studies focus on the theory's second main prediction, that household consumption responds to news about after-tax income changes, even if current after-tax income has not changed yet. To the best of my knowledge this dissertation is indeed the first study to use micro-level data to estimate the consumption response to news. I use fiscal policy to study these two questions because it offers two main advantages over other empirical frameworks commonly used by macroeconomists to test the consumption theory and to analyze the effect of news on macroeconomic aggregates. First, exploiting the fact that there is a lag between the decision to change taxes and the implementation of the tax changes allows me to separate the behavioral response to news from the response to the actual policy changes. Therefore, the response to tax news is not confounded by the response to the actual tax change. Second, actual tax changes are directly observable without measurement issues, which is different from other news shocks that have been recently studied, in particular news about future total factor productivity. Therefore, my measure of news about future taxes can be directly compared with the actual evolution of the tax rates. Regarding public economics, this dissertation addresses another question that is of interest to public policy makers. During the current Great Recession, in which conventional monetary policy is not effective due to the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates, policy makers have shifted attention to fiscal interventions. In order to assess the effectiveness of fiscal policy we have to know the total effect of a tax reform on the economy, i.e. the tax multiplier. Unfortunately, almost all studies that provide estimates of tax multipliers focus on the response of the economy to actual tax changes. These estimates might miss a fraction of the total effect of a tax reform if tax changes are predictable and if the behavior of economic agents is forward-looking. Ignoring anticipation effects can therefore bias the tax multiplier downward. The identification of news about future tax rates is key for answering these questions. In this dissertation I exploit the fact that there exist two classes of fixed-income securities in the U.S. that are very similar except for the tax treatment of their income streams. Interest on municipal bonds is tax-exempt, while interest on Treasury bonds is subject to federal income taxes; thus, relative price changes between municipal and Treasury bonds reflect changes in expected future tax rates, holding fixed other risk factors. I go beyond identification of the timing of news to directly measure the entire path of expected tax rates. The fact that different bonds have different maturities quantifies the degree of tax foresight, since yield spreads of bonds with different maturities reflect information about future taxes over different horizons. Hence, the tax news shocks derived from the bond prices measure not only when households receive information, but also what information they receive. Identifying the entire path of expected tax rates in turn is important for testing the basic rational-expectations life-cycle model of consumption, as the theory predicts that consumption responds one-for-one to changes in expected after-tax lifetime income. The term structure of municipal yield spreads identifies the expected persistence of a tax shock, which is a crucial factor that determines the optimal consumption response according to the theory. For instance, if a tax change is expected to be only transitory, then the theory predicts that consumption does not respond much. On the other hand, if a tax reform is expected to have a large persistent component, then consumption should respond much stronger. Combining these market-based tax expectations with consumption data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey I find that consumption of high-income households increases by close to 1% in response to news of a 1% increase in expected after-tax lifetime income, consistent with the basic rational-expectations life-cycle theory. On the other hand, households who have lower income, less education, or are more credit constrained respond less to news. However, the same households also respond one-for-one with large news shocks, consistent with rational inattention.
Download or read book Tax News written by Lorenz Kueng and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although theoretical models of household behavior often emphasize fiscal foresight, empirical studies of household consumption have yet to document the role of news about tax changes. Using novel high-frequency bond data, I develop a model of the term structure of municipal yield spreads as a function of future top income tax rates and a risk premium. Testing the model using the presidential elections of 1992 and 2000 as two quasi-natural experiments shows that financial markets forecast future tax rates remarkably well in both the short and long run. Combining these market-based tax expectations with data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, I find that spending of higher-income households increases by close to 1% in response to news of a 1% increase in expected after-tax lifetime (permanent) income. These findings imply that by ignoring anticipation effects, previous estimates of the total effect of a tax change could be substantially biased.
Download or read book Private Sector Consumption Behavior and Non Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Policy written by Ms.Rina Bhattacharya and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1999-08-01 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper explores the hypothesis that the propensity to consume out of income is not constant but varies, perhaps in a nonlinear fashion, with fiscal variables. It examines whether there is any empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that households move from non-Ricardian to Ricardian behavior as government debt reaches high levels and as uncertainty about future taxes increases. The paper also examines the possibility of a relationship (along the lines of the Bertola-Drazen model) between the propensity to consume out of income and the government consumption-to-GDP ratio.
Download or read book It s Not All Fiscal written by Laura Jaramillo and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We attempt to disentangle income and wealth effects on consumption by disaggregating both the different types of income and wealth. We estimate a consumption function for a panel of quarterly data for 14 advanced economies spanning 1998 to 2012, using an error correction specification. We find a significant long-term relation between consumption and the different components of income and wealth. While fiscal policy had direct effects on consumption, the analysis suggests that wealth effects were sizeable, and therefore need to be kept in mind when analyzing consumption trends going forward.
Download or read book The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology written by Cait Lamberton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-04-06 with total page 873 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the last two years, consumers have experienced massive changes in consumption – whether due to shifts in habits; the changing information landscape; challenges to their identity, or new economic experiences of scarcity or abundance. What can we expect from these experiences? How are the world's leading thinkers applying both foundational knowledge and novel insights as we seek to understand consumer psychology in a constantly changing landscape? And how can informed readers both contribute to and evaluate our knowledge? This handbook offers a critical overview of both fundamental topics in consumer psychology and those that are of prominence in the contemporary marketplace, beginning with an examination of individual psychology and broadening to topics related to wider cultural and marketplace systems. The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology, 2nd edition, will act as a valuable guide for teachers and graduate and undergraduate students in psychology, marketing, management, economics, sociology, and anthropology.
Download or read book Tax News written by Lorenz Kueng and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 27 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although theoretical models of household behavior often emphasize fiscal foresight, most empirical studies neglect the role of news, thereby potentially underestimating the total effect of tax changes. Using novel high-frequency bond data, I develop a model of the term structure of municipal yield spreads as a function of future top income tax rates and a risk premium. Testing the model using the presidential elections of 1992 and 2000 as two natural experiments shows that financial markets forecast future tax rates remarkably well in both the short and long run. Combining these market-based tax expectations with consumption data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, I find that consumption of high-income households increases by close to 1% in response to news of a 1% increase in expected after-tax lifetime income, consistent with the basic rational-expectations life-cycle theory.
Download or read book 100 Years of U S Consumer Spending written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures written by United States. Department of the Treasury and published by . This book was released on 1975 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book National Saving and Economic Performance written by John B. Shoven and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2009-02-15 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past decade has witnessed a decline in saving throughout the developed world—the United States has the dubious distinction of leading the way. The consequences can be serious. For individuals, their own economic security and that of their families is jeopardized. For society, inadequate rates of saving have been blamed for a variety of ills—decreasing the competitive abilities of American industry, slowing capital accumulation, increasing our trade deficit, and forcing the sale of capital stock to foreign investors at bargain prices. Restoring acceptable rates of saving in the United States poses a major challenge to those who formulate national economic policy, especially since economists and policymakers alike still understand little about what motivates people to save. In National Saving and Economic Performance, edited by B. Douglas Bernheim and John B. Shoven, that task is addressed by offering the results of new research, with recommendations for policies aimed to improve saving. Leading experts in diverse fields of economics debate the need for more accurate measurement of official saving data; examine how corporate decisions to retain or distribute earnings affect household-level consumption and saving; and investigate the effects of taxation on saving behavior, correlations between national saving and international investment over time, and the influence of economic growth on saving. Presenting the most comprehensive and up-to-date research on saving, this volume will benefit both academic and government economists.
Download or read book Weekly Weather and Crop Bulletin written by and published by . This book was released on 1994 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Expansionary Austerity New International Evidence written by Mr.Daniel Leigh and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2011-07-01 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper investigates the short-term effects of fiscal consolidation on economic activity in OECD economies. We examine the historical record, including Budget Speeches and IMFdocuments, to identify changes in fiscal policy motivated by a desire to reduce the budget deficit and not by responding to prospective economic conditions. Using this new dataset, our estimates suggest fiscal consolidation has contractionary effects on private domestic demand and GDP. By contrast, estimates based on conventional measures of the fiscal policy stance used in the literature support the expansionary fiscal contractions hypothesis but appear to be biased toward overstating expansionary effects.
Download or read book The Analysis of Household Surveys written by Angus Deaton and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1997 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using data from several countries, including Cote d'Ivoire, India, Pakistan, Taiwan, and Thailand, this book analyzes household survey data from developing countries and illustrates how such data can be used to cast light on a range of short-term and long-term policy issues.
Download or read book Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis written by Angus Deaton and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In September 2001, staff from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund met with the objective of strengthening collaboration between the two organizations in projects of civil service reform. This strengthened collaboration will have key benefits in ensuring consistency between the conflicting goals of the two organizations, establishing realistic objectives within the reform process, and maintaining a core set of wage and employment data. The principal conclusion arrived at was that World Bank and IMF staff should be engaging in collaboration earlier in the reform process. To guide the collaboration, six foundations were identified. These include: develop a medium-term fiscal framework; foster national ownership by making reforms politically feasible; focus and streamline conditionality; agree on sequencing and timing of reforms; and strengthen data collection. These principals will be tested for effectiveness in several focus countries.
Download or read book Inflation Expectations written by Peter J. N. Sinclair and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2009-12-16 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inflation is regarded by the many as a menace that damages business and can only make life worse for households. Keeping it low depends critically on ensuring that firms and workers expect it to be low. So expectations of inflation are a key influence on national economic welfare. This collection pulls together a galaxy of world experts (including Roy Batchelor, Richard Curtin and Staffan Linden) on inflation expectations to debate different aspects of the issues involved. The main focus of the volume is on likely inflation developments. A number of factors have led practitioners and academic observers of monetary policy to place increasing emphasis recently on inflation expectations. One is the spread of inflation targeting, invented in New Zealand over 15 years ago, but now encompassing many important economies including Brazil, Canada, Israel and Great Britain. Even more significantly, the European Central Bank, the Bank of Japan and the United States Federal Bank are the leading members of another group of monetary institutions all considering or implementing moves in the same direction. A second is the large reduction in actual inflation that has been observed in most countries over the past decade or so. These considerations underscore the critical – and largely underrecognized - importance of inflation expectations. They emphasize the importance of the issues, and the great need for a volume that offers a clear, systematic treatment of them. This book, under the steely editorship of Peter Sinclair, should prove very important for policy makers and monetary economists alike.
Download or read book Model Rules of Professional Conduct written by American Bar Association. House of Delegates and published by American Bar Association. This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.
Download or read book Reducing Inflation written by Christina D. Romer and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2007-12-01 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there is ample evidence that high inflation is harmful, little is known about how best to reduce inflation or how far it should be reduced. In this volume, sixteen distinguished economists analyze the appropriateness of low inflation as a goal for monetary policy and discuss possible strategies for reducing inflation. Section I discusses the consequences of inflation. These papers analyze inflation's impact on the tax system, labor market flexibility, equilibrium unemployment, and the public's sense of well-being. Section II considers the obstacles facing central bankers in achieving low inflation. These papers study the precision of estimates of equilibrium unemployment, the sources of the high inflation of the 1970s, and the use of non-traditional indicators in policy formation. The papers in section III consider how institutions can be designed to promote successful monetary policy, and the importance of institutions to the performance of policy in the United States, Germany, and other countries. This timely volume should be read by anyone who studies or conducts monetary policy.
Download or read book Handbook of Behavioral Economics Foundations and Applications 1 written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2018-09-27 with total page 749 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Handbook of Behavioral Economics: Foundations and Applications presents the concepts and tools of behavioral economics. Its authors are all economists who share a belief that the objective of behavioral economics is to enrich, rather than to destroy or replace, standard economics. They provide authoritative perspectives on the value to economic inquiry of insights gained from psychology. Specific chapters in this first volume cover reference-dependent preferences, asset markets, household finance, corporate finance, public economics, industrial organization, and structural behavioural economics. This Handbook provides authoritative summaries by experts in respective subfields regarding where behavioral economics has been; what it has so far accomplished; and its promise for the future. This taking-stock is just what Behavioral Economics needs at this stage of its so-far successful career. Helps academic and non-academic economists understand recent, rapid changes in theoretical and empirical advances within behavioral economics Designed for economists already convinced of the benefits of behavioral economics and mainstream economists who feel threatened by new developments in behavioral economics Written for those who wish to become quickly acquainted with behavioral economics
