Suchergebnisse

​Anhand eines dynamischen stochastischen Gleichgewichtsmodells (DSGE) hat Marius Clemens den Zusammenhang zwischen Ölpreisveränderungen und makroökonomischer Stabilität in ölimportierenden Volkswirtschaften analysiert. Vor dem Hintergrund endogener Ölpreise, einer globalen Güter- und Kapitalmarktintegration und einer veränderten Ölmarktstruktur ergeben sich alternative Erklärungsansätze mit neuen Implikationen für die Zentralbankpolitik. Demnach führen Ölpreisschocks eher zur Rezession, wenn Öl nicht substituierbar, internationaler Handel beschränkt oder der geldpolitische Zielkonflikt groß ist. Im Anschluss an die Analyse der Wirkungskanäle werden die optimale Stabilisierungspolitik und das strategische Verhalten der Zentralbank infolge von Ölpreisveränderungen untersucht.

Die derzeit hohen Überschüsse in den öffentlichen Haushalten werden bis 2021 nahezu aufgebraucht sein. Dies liegt nicht nur an der schwächeren konjunkturellen Entwicklung – auch eine expansive Finanzpolitik trägt dazu bei: Im Jahr 2020 fallen vor allem die steuerlichen Entlastungen und nochmaligen Kindergelderhöhungen ins Gewicht, ein Jahr darauf dann insbesondere die weitgehende Abschaffung des Solidaritätszuschlags sowie die geplante Einführung der Grundrente. Auch die Ausgaben steigen überdurchschnittlich, unter anderem im Rahmen des Klimaschutzgesetzes. Wenn defizitäre Entwicklungen im Bundeshaushalt und den Sozialkassen in der mittleren Frist bis 2024 vermieden werden sollen, dürften angesichts des bis dahin mehr und mehr zu Buche schlagenden demografischen Wandels nicht nur Beitragssatzerhöhungen bei den Sozialversicherungen erforderlich sein. Zu befürchten ist, dass staatliche Investitionen in Sach- und Humankapital deutlich reduziert werden. Dabei wäre ein Investitionsprogramm gleich doppelt lohnend: Würde der Staat in den nächsten sechs Jahren fünf Milliarden Euro pro Jahr zusätzlich in verschiedene Bedarfe investieren und anschließend verstetigen, stiege das Potentialwachstum bereits in der mittleren Frist um 0,3 Prozentpunkte. Zudem würden bereits bis 2024 über höhere Einnahmen aus Steuern und Sozialbeiträgen knapp 20 Milliarden Euro in die Staatskasse zurückfließen.

Die derzeit hohen Überschüsse in den öffentlichen Haushalten werden bis 2021 nahezu aufgebraucht sein. Dies liegt nicht nur an der schwächeren konjunkturellen Entwicklung - auch eine expansive Finanzpolitik trägt dazu bei: Im Jahr 2020 fallen vor allem die steuerlichen Entlastungen und nochmaligen Kindergelderhöhungen ins Gewicht, ein Jahr darauf dann insbesondere die weitgehende Abschaffung des Solidaritätszuschlags sowie die geplante Einführung der Grundrente. Auch die Ausgaben steigen überdurchschnittlich, unter anderem im Rahmen des Klimaschutzgesetzes. Wenn defizitäre Entwicklungen im Bundeshaushalt und den Sozialkassen in der mittleren Frist bis 2024 vermieden werden sollen, dürften angesichts des bis dahin mehr und mehr zu Buche schlagenden demografischen Wandels nicht nur Beitragssatzerhöhungen bei den Sozialversicherungen erforderlich sein. Zu befürchten ist, dass staatliche Investitionen in Sach- und Humankapital deutlich reduziert werden. Dabei wäre ein Investitionsprogramm gleich doppelt lohnend: Würde der Staat in den nächsten sechs Jahren fünf Milliarden Euro pro Jahr zusätzlich in verschiedene Bedarfe investieren und anschließend verstetigen, stiege das Potentialwachstum bereits in der mittleren Frist um 0,3 Prozentpunkte. Zudem würden bereits bis 2024 über höhere Einnahmen aus Steuern und Sozialbeiträgen knapp 20 Milliarden Euro in die Staatskasse zurückfließen.

This paper evaluates the temporary VAT reduction introduced by the German government over the 3Q2020:4Q2020 as a controversial part of the COVID-19 stimulus package. Critics argue that VAT reductions are ineffective because of limited pass-through to consumer prices and during lockdown. Advocates emphasize positive effects on durable goods and stress that a VAT reduction can partly substitute for a limited monetary policy response under the zero lower bound (ZLB). Thus, the VAT policy experiment of a sizable two-quarter VAT reduction allows studying the effects and transmissions channels of VAT measures. We extend a dynamic stochastic equilibrium (DSGE) model to address a durable goods channel and a limited VAT pass-through and distinguish between sectors directly and indirectly affected by the lockdown. We trace lockdown and fiscal shocks and analyze the impact of the VAT reduction in conjunction with the lockdowns in 2020-2021 in Germany. We use nonlinear solution techniques to solve the model in the presence of a ZLB, forced savings and a partial lockdown constraint. Although the lockdown restriction reduces the effectiveness of a temporary VAT reduction, we find a short-term multiplier of 1.8. However, the cumulative multiplier reduces to below 1 over the medium term due to a shift in durable goods consumption toward 2020. Thus, the temporary VAT reduction is an effective instrument for short-term stabilization during the partial lockdown, but fiscal costs appear in the medium term. ; This (updated) version: May 2022

This paper revives the question of whether a temporary VAT change is an adequate instrument for crisis stabilization. In empirical assessments, we find that durable goods consumption fluctuates strongly over the business cycle and that VAT rate changes affect durable goods in particular. Therefore, we build a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model that is capable of addressing this major channel through which temporary VAT changes affect the economy. Furthermore, we allow for an imperfect pass-through of VAT measures to consumer prices via VAT-specific price adjustment costs. We compare the general VAT policy in the crisis with alternative stabilization policies, such as interest rate cuts, spending policies and a VAT cut only for durable goods. First, we find that considering durable goods in the model generates sizeable stabilization effects of VAT changes on consumption over a broad set of parameter ranges. Second, we find that the VAT policy can mimic monetary policy with minor exceptions. Third, the VAT rate cut has the highest short-term multiplier compared with government spending policies, but not in the medium-term. Fourth, a VAT rate reduction only on durable goods will generate strong GDP effects and even be self-financing in the first year. In contrast, a VAT reduction only on non-durables has small effects on GDP and is not self-financing. In view of our results, we conclude that a temporary VAT cut, when applied to durable goods, is an effective stabilization instrument.

The system of capital taxation consists of two instruments, namely a tax on profits and a depreciation allowance on investment. We will show in this paper that by acting on both instruments simultaneously it is possible to achieve both a growth and a fiscal net revenue target even in cases when a trade off prevails when each instrument is used individually. This is an application of the Tinbergen rule (Tinbergen 1952) to capital taxation. In the current context a fundamental requirement for this rule to work is that the two tax instruments imply different trade offs. As will be shown in the paper, depreciation allowances have a more favorable trade off between growth and net revenue in the long run compared to statutory profit tax rates. Thus, by increasing depreciation allowances and the statutory tax rate at the same time it is possible to both increase growth and fiscal space. In a model simulation calibrated to the German economy and tax system an increase of the tax depreciation rate for all investments from 10% to 25% leads to more than 2 percent GDP increase and more than 6 percent higher private investments in total. Whereas GDP and investment rise steadily over time, the government budget becomes negative in the short run. In the long run the sign of the fiscal budget effect is determined by the assumption about indexation of government consumption to GDP. However, according to the Tinbergen rule for capital taxation slight adjustments of the capital tax rate could balance out these deficits and generate additional fiscal space.

A two-sector incomplete markets model with heterogeneous agents can be used to study the distributional effects of the COVID-19 lockdown. While negative aggregate welfare effects of the lockdown are unavoidable, the size of aggregate welfare effects as well as the distribution of the welfare effects across agents turn out to depend on the specific economic environment of the affected economy as well as the response of the government to the shock. We use the model to simulate the lockdown effects based on a calibration to German data. First, we find that without state aid and limited access to international financial markets especially poor household suffer large welfare losses, while wealthy house- hold could even benefit from the lockdown. Second, a state aid program reduces large parts of the welfare losses of workers across all income groups in the affected sectors by forcing loss sharing with agents working in the non-affected sector. However, wealthy households no matter in which sector still benefit more than the average household. Third, access to international financial markets is key to shift relative welfare gains from superrich to poorer households in both sectors. Once the country is able to borrow internationally, the benefit for superrich diminishes. Our results implicate that countries with rather limited access to financial markets and less stable government budget positions will suffer higher welfare losses and increases in inequality.

Reorganizing European fiscal policy is a main topic in current reform considerations. In particular, the creation of a European stabilization mechanism is being discussed. This study examines the macroeconomic effects of a stabilization fund, the economic consequences of which are analyzed in an equilibrium model. The model shows that a stabilization fund reduces economic fluctuations and is thus a mechanism for making the entire currency area more crisis-proof in the future. However, it should be noted that a stabilization fund may be more politically feasible than shifting responsibility from the national level to a new European Ministry of Finance. Moreover, moral hazard in regards to the behavior of individual countries must be taken into account when designing the stabilization fund. For example, parallel to the introduction of a European stabilization fund, compliance with fiscal rules should be effectively enforced.

A European unemployment insurance scheme has gained increased attention as a new and ambitious common fiscal instrument which could be used for temporary cross-country transfers. Part of the national stabilizers composing unemployment insurance schemes would be transferred to the central level. Unemployed are then insured by both layers. When a country is hit by an asymmetric shock, it would receive positive net transfers from the central fund in the form of reduced taxes and increased benefits, providing risk-sharing for the whole union. We build a two-country DSGE model with supply, demand and labor market shocks in order to capture the recent national insurance system and the unemployment insurance union (UIU) design. The model is calibrated to the euro area core and periphery data and matches the empirically observed cyclicality of the net replacement rate, the wage and unemployment dynamics. This baseline scenario is then compared to an optimal unemployment insurance union with passive and active benefit policies. For all underlying shocks, we find that the UIU reduces the fluctuation of consumption and unemployment while it increases the fluctuations of the trade balance. In case of a positive domestic government spending shock the UIU reduces the negative crowding out effect on private consumption and investment. The model will be used to analyze the effects of national and supranational benefit policies on labour market patterns and welfare.