Suchergebnisse

This paper examines the long-run determinants of the euro-yen exchange rate. Using cointegration analysis, we find a consistent and significant relationship between the real exchange rate and relative productivity, the net foreign asset position, relative government spending and terms of trade shocks, as well as a fairly rapid mean reversion of the exchange rate to its equilibrium. The "equilibrium" rate tracks the trends in the actual exchange rate quite well, accounting for a large part of the yen appreciation from the mid-1970s to 2001. Our findings suggest that the euro appreciation against the yen in 2001 represented an equilibrium correction of its previous depreciation. Moreover, the width of the error bands highlights the difficulties arising when attempting to determine the precise equilibrium value of a currency.

I provide a measure of household uncertainty available for European Union (EU) countries. The measure draws from the same consumer survey data used to construct widely-used consumer sentiment indices. I find that increases in household uncertainty are followed by declines in consumer sentiment and household financial conditions. Using Euro Area-wide indices, I also find that the effects of increases in household uncertainty differ from increases in uncertainty from other sources such as financial markets and economic policy. Notably, household uncertainty shocks are inflationary. These results challenge the notion that (household) uncertainty shocks act like negative demand shocks.

Der Erfolg von Parteien unterschiedlicher politischer Ebenen ist stark voneinander abhängig. Föderale Wahlen beeinflussen regionale Wahlentscheidungen und umgekehrt (Wahlexternalitäten). In diesem Aufsatz identifizieren wir Wahlexternalitäten zwischen Deutschland insgesamt und Berlin für vier Parteien. Dafür benutzen wir Wahlumfragen. Wahlexternalitäten erklären zwischen 10% und 30% der Variation der jeweils anderen politischen Ebene. Die Effekte sind höchst heterogen zwischen den Parteien.

Joint modelling of fiscal and monetary policies should elucidate on their interaction. We construct an eight-dimensional parsimonious structural vector equilibrium correction model (PSVECM) of the US macro economy over the last five decades. The fiscal deficit is found to be one of the five cointegration vectors, constraining fiscal policy in the long run. In contrast, the share of the government sector is found not to be mean reverting. To overcome the common problem of ad-hoc assumptions regarding the direction of instantaneous causality, we use graph-theoretical methods to identify the causal structure of the model from the data. Model reduction procedures allow to control for the course-of-dimensionality inhibiting such high-dimensional vector autoregressive systems. Impulse-response analysis of the parsimonious system facilitated the precise measurement of the dynamic Keynesian fiscal multiplier, where we distinguish between deficit-spending and balanced-budget government spending shocks (as in the so-called Haavelmo, 1945, theorem). Our estimates of the long-run multiplier are 1.62 in case of the bond-financed and 1.77 in case of the tax-financed spending shock, with both being significant greater than one at a 95\% confidence level. Monetary policy is neutral is the long-run but have permanent effects on the level of output. Increasing the federal funds rate by a percentage point is followed by falling tax revenues while government spending is largely unchanged, thus inflating the fiscal deficit in the short- and medium run.

We use quantile regression methods to estimate the effects of government spending shocks on output and unemployment rates. This allows to uncover nonlinear effects of fiscal policy by letting the parameters of either vector autoregressive models or local projection regressions vary across the conditional distribution of macroeconomic activity. In quarterly US data, we find that fiscal output multipliers are notably larger for lower quantiles of the conditional distribution of GDP deviations from trend. Conversely, higher government spending appears to lower the rate of unemployment significantly only at its highest deciles.

This paper is an empirical sequel to our previous theoretical analysis of the relationship between tax decentralisation and economic growth. Taking such theoretical work as a point of departure, we ask whether the process of fiscal decentralisation experienced by the Spanish economy since the early eighties supports our main findings. Following recent analytical considerations for fiscal decentralisation measurement, several revenue decentralisation indicators for the Spanish case are proposed. According with the results, we might conclude that revenue control decentralisation to lower levels of government in Spain has generated a positive effect on economic growth.

The German population is aging. Since fewer children are born and simultaneously life expectancy rises, demographic changes will lead to a double aging process. The paper analyzes the effects of demographic changes on the public budget by applying a cointegration analysis to global budget variables. Our procedure, which covers the period between 1950 and 1990, adds to prevailing projections, emphasizing that low vital rates are not the problem but their development over time. The estimation results of several error-correction-models show, that in the long-run an increase in the old age dependency ratio and a decline in the reproduction rate will lead to higher public expenditures. As regards public revenues, the results are ambivalent. The change in the age structures results in higher tax revenues, while the decline of population has the opposite effect. Furthermore, we find empirical evidence that aging increases the debt ratio. Compared to these long-run effects, the short-run dynamics is only of minor importance. Significant parameter estimates can be found mainly in the model for the social security contribution rate. Simulating the development of this rate on basis of an error-correction-model for the next four decades shows, that aging will further increase the tax load ratio and financing pay-as-you-go-systems will become more difficult. Nevertheless, there are a number of instruments the government can take to absorb these negative effects and to limit the burden to future generations.

Abstract. We examine empirically the effect of tax amnesties on long term tax collection when such amnesties are used by a government as a regular source of revenue. We use data from the Tucuman province (Argentina) to test the main hypothesis of the model, namely, that amnesties lower the government's revenue, as they reduce the penalties and make evasion more profitable. We find, however, that amnesties do not affect the long-term revenue. The other main result is in line with the theoretical predictions: the increase in short-run revenue is temporary and only accelerates the collection of the taxes but does not increase the amount collected. Thus, we conclude that amnesties were used only to obtain a short-run surge in revenue and to avoid more fundamental tax reforms.Keywords. Tax amnesties, Tax evasion.JEL. H27, H26, C32.

In a co-fractional vector autoregressive (VAR) model two more parameters are estimated, compared to the traditional cointegrated VAR model. The increased number of parameters that needs to be estimated leads to identification problems; there is no unique formulation of a co-fractional system, though usually one formulation is preferred. This paper has the following contributions: (i) it discusses different kinds of identification problems in co-fractional VAR models; (ii) it proposes a specification test for higher order fractional processes; (iii) it presents an Ox program that can be used for estimating and testing co-fractional systems; and (iv) it uses the above mentioned contributions to analyse a system of Government Bonds in the US and Norway where the results indicates that the level and trend in the yield curve have a longer memory than the curvature (i.e., a linear combination of the yields of the Government Bonds that corresponds to representing the curvature of the yield curve is a co-fractional relationship).

In an period of heightened concern about fiscal consolidation in the Euro zone, a politically expedient way of dealing with the situation is to cut public investment. A critical question, however, is whether or not political expediency comes at a cost, in terms of both long-term economic performance and future budgetary consolidation efforts. In fact, one would expect any type of investment, including public investment, to improve the long-term economic performance. Moreover, to the extent that public investment increases output in the long-term, it also expands the tax base and, therefore, tax revenues in the long term. It is conceivable that public investment has such strong effects on output, that over time it generates enough additional tax revenues to pay for itself. It is equally plausible that the effects on output although positive are not strong enough for the public investment to pay for itself. In the first case, cuts in public investment hurt long-term growth and make the future budgetary situation worse. In the second case, cuts in public investment hurt the long-term economic performance without hurting the future budgetary situation. In this paper we investigate this question empirically in the context of a number of countries in the Euro zone using a vector auto-regressive/error correction mechanism approach to determine the effects of aggregated public investment on output, employment and private investment. Our ultimate objective is to determine in which regime do the different countries seem to fit and determine to what extent cuts in public investment may turn out to be counter-productive in the long-term from a budgetary perspective.