{"title":"Labor supply when productivity keeps growing","authors":"Timo Boppart , Per Krusell , Jonna Olsson","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2023.07.010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2023.07.010","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We examine the intensive and extensive margins of labor supply in an incomplete-markets framework where productivity keeps growing. What are, in particular, the long-run implications for who will work how much, and how the distribution of economic welfare among households will change? We insist the relative strengths of income and substitution effects to be such as to match historical and cross-country observations. That is, hours will fall toward zero as productivity and income rise, while wages per hour will keep rising and be consistent with stable income shares for labor and capital. Despite this rather drastic path toward zero hours worked, we find that few features of the distribution of outcomes in the population are affected much at all by productivity growth. In particular, the relative distribution of hours worked and of consumption will look very similar to the case without productivity growth.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"50 ","pages":"Pages 61-87"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49698918","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jonathan Heathcote , Fabrizio Perri , Giovanni L. Violante , Lichen Zhang
{"title":"More unequal we stand? Inequality dynamics in the United States, 1967–2021","authors":"Jonathan Heathcote , Fabrizio Perri , Giovanni L. Violante , Lichen Zhang","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2023.07.014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2023.07.014","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>Heathcote et al. (2010)</span><span> conducted an empirical analysis of several dimensions of inequality in the United States over the years 1967-2006, using publicly-available survey data. This paper expands the analysis, and extends it to 2021. We find that since the early 2000s, the college wage premium has stopped growing, and the race wage gap has stalled. However, the gender wage gap has kept shrinking. Both individual- and household-level income inequality have continued to rise at the top, while the cyclical component of inequality dominates dynamics below the median. Inequality in consumption expenditures has remained remarkably stable over time. Income pooling within the family and redistribution by the government have enormous impacts on the dynamics of household-level inequality, with the role of the family diminishing and that of the government growing over time. In particular, largely due to generous government transfers, the COVID recession has been the first downturn in fifty years in which inequality in disposable income and consumption actually declined.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"50 ","pages":"Pages 235-266"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49698930","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Giovanni Callegari , Ramon Marimon , Adrien Wicht , Luca Zavalloni
{"title":"On a lender of last resort with a central bank and a stability Fund","authors":"Giovanni Callegari , Ramon Marimon , Adrien Wicht , Luca Zavalloni","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2023.07.012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2023.07.012","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We explore the complementarity between a central bank and a financial stability Fund in stabilizing sovereign debt markets. The central bank pursuing its mandate can intervene with public sector purchasing programs, buying sovereign debt in the secondary market, provided that the debt is safe. The sovereign sells its debt to private lenders, through market auctions. Furthermore, it has access to a long-term state-contingent contract with a Fund: a country-specific debt-and-insurance contract that accounts for no-default and no-over-lending constraints. The Fund needs to guarantee gross-financial-needs and no-over-lending. We show that these constraints endogenously determine the ‘optimal debt maturity’ structure that minimizes the Required Fund Capacity (RFC) to make all sovereign debt safe. However, the Fund may have limited absorption capacity and fall short of its RFC. The central bank may be able to cover the difference, in which case there is perfect complementarity and the joint institutions act as an effective ‘lender of last resort’. We calibrate our model to the Italian economy and find that with a Fund contract its ‘optimal debt maturity’ is 2.9 years with an RFC of 90% of GDP, which is above what the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) could reasonably absorb, but may be feasible with an ECB <em>Transmission Protection Instrument</em> (TPI) intervention. In contrast, the average maturity of Italian sovereign debt has been circa 6.2 years, with a needed absorption capacity of around 105% of GDP, which may call for a maturity restructuring to ease the activation of TPI.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"50 ","pages":"Pages 106-130"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49698924","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nezih Guner , Martin Lopez-Daneri , Gustavo Ventura
{"title":"The looming fiscal reckoning: Tax distortions, top earners, and revenues","authors":"Nezih Guner , Martin Lopez-Daneri , Gustavo Ventura","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2023.07.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2023.07.003","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>How should the U.S. confront the growing revenue needs driven by higher spending requirements? We investigate the mix of potential tax increases that generate a given revenue need at the minimum welfare cost and evaluate its macroeconomic impact. We do so in the context of a life-cycle growth model that captures key aspects of the earnings and wealth<span><span> distributions and the non-linear shape of taxes and transfers in place. Our findings show that a proportional </span>consumption tax<span><span> combined with a lump-sum transfer to all households and a reduction in income tax progressivity consistently emerges as the best alternative to minimize welfare costs associated with a given increase in revenue. A 30% long-run increase in Federal tax revenue requires a consumption tax rate of 27.8%, a transfer of about 12% of mean household income to all households, and a reduction of top marginal </span>income tax rates of more than 5 percentage points—output declines by 7.9% in the long run. While transfers are substantial, smaller transfers can accomplish most of the reduction in welfare costs. We find no role for wealth taxes in increasing revenues or minimizing welfare costs.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"50 ","pages":"Pages 146-170"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49698557","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Demographic change, government debt and fiscal sustainability in Japan: The impact of bond purchases by the Bank of Japan","authors":"Gary D. Hansen , Selahattin İmrohoroğlu","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2023.07.007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2023.07.007","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We reconsider the fiscal consequences of an aging population in Japan that were reported in <span>Hansen and İmrohoroğlu (2016)</span><span>. That paper predicted that the net debt to GNP ratio would reach 250 percent in 2021, while the actual net debt to GNP ratio was roughly constant at about 120% from 2011 to 2019. Here we study the role played by higher tax revenues, lower spending, and lower interest rates than were assumed in the previous paper. Most importantly, we consider the role played by Japanese government bonds held by the Bank of Japan in enabling this period of debt stability. We conclude that the stable net debt to output ratio is predicted to be temporary and reach 250 percent before 2040.</span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"50 ","pages":"Pages 88-105"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49698921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Growth through Learning","authors":"Boyan Jovanovic , Sai Ma","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2023.07.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2023.07.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p><span>This paper analyzes an economy in which agents face related problems and invest in parameter information that they share. The N-player game generates growth via statistical learning alone. The equilibrium growth rate rises with agents' risk aversion via precautionary saving. Research entails a </span>free riding problem, but the scale effect dominates and growth rises with the number of agents.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"50 ","pages":"Pages 211-234"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49785716","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Regional divergence and house prices","authors":"Greg Howard , Jack Liebersohn","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2022.10.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2022.10.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We document a new fact: regional divergence, the rate at which rich states grow faster than poor states, explains most U.S. house price<span> movements since 1939, including the post-2000 boom-bust-boom cycle. An industry-share instrument provides evidence the relationship is causal, implying the location of economic<span> growth affects national house prices. We propose a model to learn why regional divergence and house prices are related. In the model, high interstate inequality raises rents on average because relative demand for living in a high-income state increases and housing supply in low-income states is elastic. Regional divergence leads to higher expected future interstate inequality, which implies higher expected future rents, and therefore, higher current house prices. The model accurately predicts rents since 1929, which are quite different than prices, as well as cross-sectional moments of prices, rents, construction, and migration.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"49 ","pages":"Pages 312-350"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49876488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Long-term care needs and savings in retirement","authors":"Jesús Bueren","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2022.08.004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2022.08.004","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>In this paper, I investigate to what extent heterogeneity in both long-term care (LTC) needs and informal care support affects the savings decisions of the old. For this purpose, I develop and estimate a model of retired single individuals where agents are exposed to physical and/or cognitive health deterioration that triggers demand for LTC. To cope with LTC, agents differ in the amount of informal care provided by relatives and can purchase formal care at a market price to supplement this. I find that (i) LTC is relatively more important than bequest motives in explaining the lack of dissaving of individuals with limited access to informal care, (ii) concurrent cognitive and physical limitations account for most of the precautionary savings related to LTC, and (iii) Abstracting from informal care provision from relatives overestimates the welfare gains from expansions in government-provided means-tested care programs.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"49 ","pages":"Pages 201-224"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49876485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The promises (and perils) of control-contingent forward guidance","authors":"He Nie , Jordan Roulleau-Pasdeloup","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2022.07.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2022.07.002","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We develop a model with <em>control-contingent</em><span><span> forward guidance: the central bank explicitly anchors future policy announcements to short run inflation<span>. Even though the model features past promises, we compute a closed form solution using a simple Markov chain representation. This allows us to show analytically that control-contingent forward guidance can rid the model of sunspot </span></span>liquidity traps<span><span><span>. The same holds for a policy of price level targeting, which emerges as a special case. Finally, we leverage this new framework to formally show that announced </span>interest rates are only a means to an end: what truly matters is </span>expected inflation.</span></span></p></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"49 ","pages":"Pages 77-98"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49875852","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Joseph G. Altonji , Disa M. Hynsjö , Ivan Vidangos
{"title":"Individual earnings and family income: Dynamics and distribution","authors":"Joseph G. Altonji , Disa M. Hynsjö , Ivan Vidangos","doi":"10.1016/j.red.2022.08.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.red.2022.08.005","url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>We review research on the dynamics and distribution of individual earnings and family income. We start with univariate earnings models, which dominate the literature and are often used as the exogenous component of family income in structural models of saving. We present a version of the linear model that nests most of the specifications that have been used in the literature, and then discuss recent papers that stress nonnormal shocks, nonlinear and age-dependent processes, and heterogeneous model parameters. The recent work provides a much richer description of the nature of earnings volatility than the basic model. We then turn to models of individual earnings that are based on wages, employment, job mobility, and hours. These multivariate models permit measuring the sources of permanent differences in earnings and distinguishing among shocks that influence earnings through employment, job mobility, general productivity, or hours. Finally, we consider models of lifetime family income that integrate individual earnings, marriage (accounting for marital sorting), and earnings of a spouse, if present. We conclude by discussing directions for future work.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":47890,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Dynamics","volume":"49 ","pages":"Pages 225-250"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49876484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}