The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics Volume 19 Issue 1

The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics

Volume 19 Issue 1

Contents
Journal Overview

Aggregate implications of occupational inheritance in China and India

Ting Ji December 31, 2018

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Abstract

This paper documents occupational inheritance – that is, children’s inheritance of their parents’ occupations – in China, India, and other countries. Among the causes of the prevalence of occupational inheritance, we target two broad categories that impede growth: labor market frictions and barriers to human capital acquisition. Counterfactual experiments based on a tractable occupational choice model suggest that if the impediments mentioned above were reduced to the US levels, labor productivity would grow by 60–75% in China and 107–178% in India. China realized 74–89% of this growth potential from the 1980s to 2009. In addition, this productivity gain is accompanied by a decrease in the correlation of intergenerational incomes.

The Precautionary Saving Effect of Government Consumption

Valerio Ercolani, Nicola Pavoni October 20, 2018

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Abstract

We study a largely neglected channel through which government expenditures can boost private consumption. We set up a dynamic model in which households are subject to health shocks. We take the model to the data and estimate a negative impact of public health care on household consumption dispersion, wealth and saving. According to our model, this result is explained by a change in the level of precautionary saving, with public health care acting as a form of consumption insurance. We compute the implied consumption multipliers by simulating the typical government consumption shock within a calibrated general equilibrium version of our model, with flexible prices. The impact consumption multiplier generated by the decrease in the level of precautionary saving is positive and sizable. When we include the effect of taxation, the sign of the impact multiplier depends on a few features of the model, such as the persistence of the health shocks. The long-run cumulative multiplier is negative across all calibrations.

Labor supply, income distribution, and tax progressivity in a search model

Zhiming Fu, Liang Wu, Ziguan Zhuang September 8, 2018

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Abstract

We develop a search model with risk-averse households to study the impact of tax progressivity on labor supply and income inequality across education groups. Labor supply responses are considered along both intensive and extensive margins. Our quantitative results are consistent with those of the existing empirical literature. First, we find that a decline in tax progressivity associated with the Tax Reform Act of 1986 has a significant impact on the aggregate labor supply with approximately 61 percent occurred along the extensive margin. Second, households differ in their labor and income responses to tax reform. A decline in tax progressivity changes the income composition of each household by affecting labor supplies and asset holdings. This leads to an increase in income inequality. Therefore, the tax share paid by the most educated group rises due to an increase in capital income after tax reforms are instituted.

Fiscal counter-cyclicality and productive investment: evidence from advanced economies

Davide Furceri, João Tovar Jalles September 28, 2018

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Abstract

We use a difference-in-difference approach to 25 industries for 18 advanced economies over the period 1985–2012 to examine the effect of fiscal counter-cyclicality on productive investment: (i) Research and Development (R&D), and (ii) Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The results show that fiscal counter-cyclicality increases R&D expenditure and the share of ICT capital in industries that are more financially constrained. Moreover, the effect is larger during recessions – when financing constraints are more likely to be binding – than during economic expansions. Our statistical method mitigates concerns about omitted variable bias and reverse causality. In addition, the results are robust to different measures of fiscal counter-cyclicality and to the inclusion of several controls.

Optimal taxation under equilibrium unemployment and economic profits

Wei Jiang October 12, 2018

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Abstract

This paper develops a heterogeneous agent model with equilibrium unemployment and economic profits due to productive public investment. We find that the presence of profits plays an important role in the determination of long-run optimal tax policy. The Judd-Chamley optimal zero capital tax result can still hold in the model without profits. In this case, the optimal labour wedge is zero in the long run, resulting in welfare gains for all agents and no conflict of interests between agents. But the Benthamite government chooses to subsidise capital income in the long run in the model with economic profits. The resulting labour wedge is non-zero which generates welfare losses of workers despite welfare gains of capitalists. The government also faces a trade-off between efficiency and equity in this case.

Rented vs. owner-occupied housing and monetary policy

Margarita Rubio September 26, 2018

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Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show how housing tenure (rented vs.cowner-occupied) affects monetary policy. I propose a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with housing, both owned and rented. First, I analyze how, in the model, preference parameters, fiscal incentives, and institutional factors determine the rental market share and the residential debt-to-GDP ratio. Then, within this framework, I study how the transmission and optimality of monetary policy differ depending on these factors. From a positive perspective, impulse responses illustrate differences in the monetary transmission mechanism. I find that of all factors, tax incentives generate the largest differences. In normative terms, results show that when the relative size of the rental market is larger, monetary policy is more stabilizing. An optimal monetary policy analysis also suggests that in this case, monetary policy should respond more aggressively to inflation and disregard output, because the financial accelerator effects are weaker.

The role of IPRs on prices, wages and growth in a two country directed technical change model

Óscar Afonso August 24, 2017

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Abstract

We develop a two country, Innovator and Follower , directed technical change model between tradable and nontradable sectors. The Innovator performs innovative R&D. The Follower imitates, in a pre-trade context, and adopts, in a trade scenario, the available technological knowledge. We start by considering the pre-trade context and then we analyze the trade scenario. In both regimes – imitation and adoption – and in BGP, international IPRs protection, R&D productivity, scale-effects intensity and substitutability between sectors determine the stable and unique worldwide economic growth rate and the technological-knowledge bias, which, in turn, affects relative prices and wages. Depending on IPRs protection, imitation and adoption can either amplify or slow down the technological-knowledge bias and thus the real exchange rate, the wage inequality and the worldwide growth rate. For example, under technological-knowledge adoption with positive international IPRs protection and substitutability, wages tend to be higher in the Innovator , technological knowledge and intra-country wage inequality are biased towards the tradable sector, and the real exchange rate accommodates the Balassa-Samuelson proposal.

International capital mobility and structural transformation

Kyungsoo Kim, Wankeun Oh, E. Young Song February 1, 2018

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Abstract

This study examines the role of international capital mobility in shaping the relation between economic growth and structural transformation. We build a small open economy Ramsey model with two goods, tradables and nontradables. We show that if the long-run autarky interest rate of a small open economy is higher than the world interest rate, the employment and value-added shares of the tradables sector will rise over time. In the opposite case, the shares will fall. Because the autarky interest rate increases with the rate of technological progress, our result suggests that cross-country differences in the rate of technological progress may be a significant factor in accounting for diverse patterns of structural changes among countries.

Did capital replace labor? New evidence from offshoring

Paul Moon Sub Choi, Kee Beom Kim, Jinyoung Seo September 28, 2018

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Abstract

Neoclassical theory explains the global decline of the labor income share by capital-labor substitution due to the affordable relative price of capital. Based on the Morishima elasticities of substitution among capital, labor disaggregated into high-, medium-, and low-skill groups, and imported and domestic intermediate inputs, offshoring appears to disproportionately affect job polarization globally and in developed economies. These findings in favor of the globalization hypothesis are buttressed by multivariate panel regressions. Lastly, offshoring might reinforce technological changes, a double-edged sword that can boost productivity growth but exacerbate wage inequality.

Redistributive policies and technology diffusion

Manuela Magalhães, Tiago Neves Sequeira May 18, 2018

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Abstract

In this paper we examine the effects of redistributive policies in a transition economy in the presence of technology diffusion on labor and education decisions, and skill-premium. We set a micro-founded dynamic general equilibrium model with a skill-biased technology diffusion, elastic leisure/labor decisions, and investments in education. The economy is populated by two types of households – skilled and unskilled, which become skilled through investments in education. We highlight the importance of the general equilibrium effects of redistributive policies over the leisure/labor and education decisions and wages. Lump-sum transfers reduce investments in education, raising the share of unskilled individuals, decreasing their wage and, raising the skill-premium. Education subsidies raise investments in education, the skills supply, and unskilled wages and reduce the skill-premium during the slowdown of the technology diffusion.

On the cyclicality of real wages and wage differentials

Christopher Otrok, Panayiotis M. Pourpourides September 20, 2017

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Abstract

Previous empirical literature suggests that estimated wage cyclicality depends on the structure of the relationship between real wages and an observed indicator of the business cycle that econometric models impose prior to estimation. This paper, alleviates the problem of imposing such structure by searching directly for the largest common cycles in longitudinal microdata using a Bayesian dynamic latent factor model. We find that the comovement of real wages is related to a common factor that exhibits a significant but imperfect correlation with the national unemployment rate. Among others, our findings indicate that the common factor explains, on average, no more than 9% of wage variation, it accounts for 20% or less of the wage variability for 88% of the workers in the sample and roughly half of the wages move procyclically while half move countercyclically. These facts are inconsistent with claims of a strong systematic relationship between real wages and business cycles.

Is risk shock a key factor driving business cycles in China?

Zhe Li, Shuixing Luo September 29, 2017

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Abstract

This paper studies the impact of risk shock on the Chinese economy using a New-Keynesian model with financial frictions. The study shows that risk shock is an important driving force for the fluctuations of GDP, investment, capital, credit, and credit spread in China. However, the role of risk shock in driving China’s business cycles is not as crucial as in the US economy (see Christiano, Motto, and Rostagno 2014). There are three main reasons that explain the different performance of risk shocks in China and the US: the volatility of risk shock, the effect of equity shock, and the influence of macroeconomic policies are all different in China and in the US. Our paper contributes to an understanding of the business cycles in China during the period from 1999 to 2015, particularly in comparison with business cycles in the US.

Barriers to firm growth in open economies

Facundo Piguillem, Loris Rubini August 25, 2018

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Abstract

Studies measuring barriers to firm growth assume economies are closed, ignoring information on firm exports. We argue that this information is key to interpreting data and improving the accuracy of model predictions. To do this, we develop a dynamic model with export and domestic barriers. We show theoretically that the closed economy model underestimates barriers and amplifies counterfactuals. By calibrating the model to a set of European countries, we find that the quantitative difference is significant: for example, the closed economy model fails to see that Italian firms are very efficient exporters but poor innovators, and instead concludes that they are mediocre innovators. In terms of predictions, the closed economy model delivers an elasticity of welfare to innovation costs between 31 and 64 percent larger than the open economy model.

Housing market and labor market search

Christopher Limnios November 14, 2018

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Abstract

Current models fail to concurrently account for several important empirical regularities in the housing and labor markets. I augment the Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides (DMP) search and matching model of the labor market with a housing market characterized by search and matching frictions, integrating both markets in a coherent macroeconomic model. The model provides a framework to explain how shocks and frictions which originate in the labor market spill over into the housing market and vise versa. The model accounts for procyclical, serially correlated real estate values, rental rates and expected real estate appreciation. Further, it accounts for increases in wages, housing costs and willingness to commute as a result of increases in geographic amenities. The model is also consistent with the empirical relationship between vacancy rates in the housing market and separation rates in the labor market. Simulations demonstrate that certain land-use policies can mitigate permanent shocks to labor productivity and the level of geographic amenities.

About this journal

Objective
The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics (BEJM) publishes significant research and scholarship in both theoretical and applied macroeconomics. The journal’s mandate is to assemble papers from the broad research spectrum covered by modern macroeconomics. The range of topics includes business cycle research, economic growth, and monetary economics, as well as topics drawn from the substantial areas of overlap between macroeconomics and international economics, labor economics, finance, development economics, political economy, public economics, and econometric theory.

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Topics

Political Economics
Macroeconomics
International economics
Labor economics
Finance
Development economics
Political economy
Public economics
Econometric theory

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