{"title":"Shaping inequality: Progressive taxation under human capital accumulation","authors":"Danial Ali Akbari, Thomas G. Fischer","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3742731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3742731","url":null,"abstract":"In order to design optimal policy instruments that shape the distribution of income we require realistic income models. A comparison between popular stochastic processes for income shows that most of them fail to match inequality in the US, especially at the top. The Geometric Brownian Motion with reset, however, produces realistic outcomes at both ends of the distribution, while still permitting clear analytic results. Building on this observation, we develop a micro-founded model for endogenous income inequality that fits the current US evidence. It also permits discussing the welfare effects and trade-offs of tax reforms as individuals adjust their labor supply and human capital accumulation. We extend it in an incomplete market setup solved numerically, in which individuals can both form precautionary savings and adjust their labor supply. A calibrated version suggests that the progressivity of US income taxes is below its welfare optimum by around six percentage points.","PeriodicalId":18085,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: Employment","volume":"54 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86599575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Impact of Balance Sheet Lending versus Securitization Booms on the Severity of the Great Recession","authors":"David Zink","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3710962","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3710962","url":null,"abstract":"I separately estimate the effect of local credit booms driven by balance sheet lending and those driven by securitization during the 2002-2006 period on the severity of the 2007-2009 recession in the United States. I construct a novel dataset, linking publicly available data on residential mortgage originations from the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act together with bank financial statements and county level economic outcomes. I exploit geographic variation in bank origination activity across counties to construct county level measures of exposure to securitization and balance sheet lending activity during the 2002-2006 period that are orthogonal to local economic conditions. Results show that 2002-2006 securitization exposure is predictive of sharper declines in home prices, employment, and a rise in mortgage delinquencies during the subsequent crisis period. The same is not true for balance sheet lending, which does not affect crisis period home prices and generates a drop in employment that is con fined to the nontradable sector. Results suggest that this difference is driven by risk taking that is specific to securitized lending. Balance sheet booms generate an expansion in lending to higher quality borrowers, while securitization booms increase credit availability at the lower end of the credit distribution.","PeriodicalId":18085,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: Employment","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75395570","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Aggregation Bias, Local Estimates and the Devil","authors":"P. Cardiff","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3739892","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3739892","url":null,"abstract":"When faced with a big problem, it is natural to summarize the data en route to a solution. But accepting summary as fact gives up evidence for convenience. Statistical measures from aggregate data may only be capable of indication or trends over time. Only consistency provides a mathematical basis for compiling data into a model; otherwise, the assumptions that turn actual data into indexes are subjective and biased. This paper recommends models of elements but not aggregate models. The proof of empiricism is control of micro variables representing the heterogeneity of individuals – these are the “critical details.” Imputation adds bias and variance to measurement, post weighting only complicates results arbitrarily, and allocation of sums by crude ratios is unjustified.","PeriodicalId":18085,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: Employment","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78685680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Shadow Economy: A Bibliometric Analysis","authors":"A. Zolkover, V. Terziev","doi":"10.21272/bel.4(3).107-118.2020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21272/bel.4(3).107-118.2020","url":null,"abstract":"The article deals with the analysis of the areas of research related to the shadow economy. The results of analyses show that financial market and financial intermediates become an essential part of the issues and that the topic of the problem of poverty among the urban population, low income, drugs abuse and problems of female employment, gender inequity in income in the papers which analyzed the shadow economy issues are very popular. The aim of the paper is to analyze the tendency in the scientific literature on the shadow economy to identify future research directions. For the analysis, the tools of VOSviewer, Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) analyses were used. This study is based on 5361 papers from Scopus and 3773 papers from Web of Science. The time sample of research was not limited for analysis. Time analysis showed that in 2014-2015 the number of papers dealing the shadow economy began to increase. At the same time, the focal point of research moved from general issues (estimation of shadow sector, impact on labour market etc.) to problem of transition from the informal to the formal Economy. In 2019 the number of papers which analyzed the the shadow economy was increased by 95 % compared with the 2014 year, according to Scopus database – by 29%. Mostly the papers with keyword “shadow” (informal, hidden etc.) economy were published under the following subject area, according to Scopus: Social science; Economics, Econometrics and Finance; Business, Management and Accounting; Environmental Science; Arts and Humanities, and according to WoS: Business Economics; Sociology; Public Administration; Government Law; Development Studies; Social Sciences Other Topics; Environmental Sciences Ecology; Area Studies. Most articles focused on shadow economy were published by the scientists from the USA, United Kingdom, India, Germany and South Africa. In 2019 considering the findings from Scopus the high ranked Studies in Systems Decision and Control, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Cities stated to publish papers devoted to shadow economy. Such results prove that informal economy theme and its transition to formal is in the ongoing trends of the modern regulation. The findings from VOSviewer identified six clusters of the papers which investigate the shadow economy from the different points of views. The first most significant cluster merged the paper which contained the keywords as follows: informal sector, informal economy, unemployment, gender, urban economy, labor market, corruption etc. The papers in the second largest cluster deal with poverty among urban population, low income, drugs abuse and problems of female employment, gender inequity in income. The third biggest cluster focuses on criminal and ecological aspects of shadow economy.","PeriodicalId":18085,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: Employment","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78677097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Modelling the Spread of COVID-19 in New York City","authors":"Jose Olmo, Marcos Sanso-Navarro","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3713720","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3713720","url":null,"abstract":"This paper proposes a methodology to predict the increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the city of New York at the zip code level. We concentrate on the initial period of the pandemic spanning from March 31 to June 16, 2020. To do this, we propose a Poisson regression model for count data that includes a large set of covariates reflecting socioeconomic conditions at neighbourhood level and spatial effects. The sensitivity of the predictions of the number of cases to the specific choice of the regressors is controlled for by also considering an emsemble prediction model given by Bayesian model averaging. Our results extend related studies by showing that variables such as population size, its share of the elderly, the self-employment rate, income per capita, and the percentage of workers in the educational and healthcare sectors not only explain the cross-sectional variability in the number of new confirmed cases but also have out-of-sample predictive ability. Our pointwise forecasts display reasonable mean square prediction errors and the associated interval forecasts accurate empirical coverage probabilities suggesting the suitability of the methodology for prediction of the number of infections.","PeriodicalId":18085,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: Employment","volume":"45 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87519443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Estimating the New Keynesian Phillips Curve with Regional Data and Selected Instruments","authors":"Dan Li","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3710317","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3710317","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the increase in nationwide unemployment following the Great Recession, the United States only saw a moderate fall in inflation, which has led to numerous debates on whether the Phillips curve has indeed flattened. The empirical discrepancies leading to this debate could stem from estimation issues related to confounding cost-push shocks and the many weak instruments encountered by the aggregate New Keynesian Phillips curve. This paper resolves these two issues by incorporating regional variation and instrument selection. Monte-Carlo simulations demonstrate that regional data help with the identification of the Phillips curve when cost-push shocks bias the aggregate estimation, and the NKPC estimation can be further improved in finite samples with instrument selection. I apply these methods to US metropolitan data and find that the aggregate Phillips curve has not flattened; on the contrary, the trade-off between inflation and unemployment remains strong when using regional data from more recent periods.","PeriodicalId":18085,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: Employment","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-10-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86960341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Softening the Blow: US State-level Banking Deregulation and Sectoral Reallocation after the China Trade Shock","authors":"Mathias Hoffmann, Lilia Ruslanova","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3793330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3793330","url":null,"abstract":"U.S. state-level banking deregulation during the 1980’s mitigated the impact of the China trade shock (CTS) on local economies (states and commuting zones) a decade later, in the 1990s. Local economies, where local banking markets opened up earlier, were also effectively financially more integrated by the 1990’s and saw smaller declines in house prices, wages, and income following the CTS. We explain this pattern in a theoretical model that emphasizes the stabilizing effect of financial integration on demand for housing and on housing prices: faced with an adverse shock to their region’s terms-of-trade (i.e. the CTS), households in more open states can more easily access credit to smooth consumption. This stabilizes consumer demand for housing, keeps the relative price of housing up, stabilizes wages in the non-tradable sector and thus facilitates the sectoral reallocation of labor away from import-exposed manufacturing towards the housing sector. This in turn stabilizes income and consumption. We corroborate these predictions of our model in state- and commuting zone level data. Then, using granular bank-county-level data, we show that household consumption smoothing in response to the CTS was easier in financially open areas, because geographically diversified banks were more elastic in their lending response to household’s increased demand for credit. Our findings highlight the importance of household access to finance in the adjustment to asymmetric terms-of-trade shocks in monetary unions.","PeriodicalId":18085,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: Employment","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87130901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Outside Options, Job Mobility, and Gender: Evidence from Divorce Laws","authors":"Julia Hatamyar","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3678163","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3678163","url":null,"abstract":"This paper studies the effects of non-market outside options on measures of female job mobility using a hand-collected data set of 3,041 MBA resumes. Specifically, I examine two aspects of the household: spousal assets and children. In order to proxy for these unobserved household characteristics, I exploit cross-state variation in laws regulating post-divorce asset distribution and child custody assignment. Although female MBAs on average are significantly more likely to be employed by more firms and hold more positions than their male counterparts, the effect is largely explained by accounting for differences in household outside options. A decreased likelihood of receiving an equal share of spousal assets after divorce leads to an 8.6% increase in female MBA job positions held. An increased likelihood of gaining sole child custody post-divorce has no effect on female MBA job mobility. The findings also demonstrate a relationship between divorce legislation and job mobility for both genders.","PeriodicalId":18085,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: Employment","volume":"59 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82337866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
David R. Agrawal, Dirk Foremny, C. Martínez-Toledano
{"title":"Paraísos Fiscales, Wealth Taxation, and Mobility","authors":"David R. Agrawal, Dirk Foremny, C. Martínez-Toledano","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3676031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3676031","url":null,"abstract":"This paper analyzes the effect of decentralized wealth taxation on mobility and the consequences for tax revenue and wealth inequality. Using linked administrative data, we exploit the decentralization of the Spanish wealth tax -- after which all regions except Madrid levied positive tax rates. By five years after the reform, the stock of wealthy individuals in Madrid increases by 9%, while smaller tax differentials between other regions do not matter. A theoretical model of evasion and migration rationalizes evasion as the dominant mechanism. Although the tax haven reduces the effectiveness of raising revenue and exacerbates regional wealth inequalities, our results imply that decentralized wealth taxation is feasible in the short-run. Counterfactual exercises show that federal interventions, such as minimum tax rates, can improve the effectiveness of decentralized wealth taxation.","PeriodicalId":18085,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: Employment","volume":"80 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86967796","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sefa Awaworyi Churchill, Musharavati Ephraim Munyanyi, K. Prakash, R. Smyth
{"title":"Locus of Control and the Gender Gap in Mental Health","authors":"Sefa Awaworyi Churchill, Musharavati Ephraim Munyanyi, K. Prakash, R. Smyth","doi":"10.2139/ssrn.3673224","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3673224","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We examine whether gender differences in locus of control (LoC) explain gender gaps in mental health using longitudinal data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. We find that gender differences in LoC is an important factor contributing to the well-recognised gender gap in mental health in favour of males. Our preferred estimates, that take into account differences in the distribution of characteristics of males and females, suggest that at the mean a unit increase in internal LoC for females would narrow the mental health gender gap by 2.2% and that if LoC of women were the same as that of men, it could close the gender gap in mental health by as much as 18.8%. This general conclusion is generally robust to evaluating the gender gap at the 10th and 90th quantile and a suite of sensitivity checks including different ways of measuring key variables and alternative approaches to the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition. Our findings suggest that resilience education programs that teach positive control beliefs to children should be designed particularly with girls in mind and in such a way as to encourage participation by girls.","PeriodicalId":18085,"journal":{"name":"Macroeconomics: Employment","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-08-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83669665","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}