1,520 research outputs found
Is there a persistence problem? Part 2: Maybe not
No full textIn Part 1 of this two-part series, Evan Koenig explains why some economists are skeptical that staggered price adjustment can account for monetary policy's sustained effects on aggregate economic activity. In Part 2, Koenig looks at labor-market imperfections as a possible source of persistence. He concludes that persistence is much easier to obtain if either labor cannot move freely from firm to firm or wages are set in overlapping wage contracts.Monetary policy ; Employment (Economic theory)
The dynamic impact of fundamental tax reform part 2 : extensions
No full textIn this second of two articles on the economic impact of fundamental tax reform, Gregory Huffman and Evan Koenig extend their earlier framework for analyzing how the adoption of a flat-rate consumption tax would affect the economy over time. They argue that if tax reform is to be successful in stimulating investment and raising long-run living standards, then it is important that ways be found to avoid increasing the rate of labor-income taxation. Increases in labor-income tax rates can undo the positive economic effects of a cut in the rate of capital-income taxation. Conversely, cuts in labor-income tax rates reinforce savings incentives and contribute to higher steady-state levels of consumption. Huffman and Koenig also demonstrate that the economy’s immediate response to tax reform is muted—and the overall adjustment process can be substantially prolonged—when firms find it expensive to add quickly to their stocks of plant and equipment.Taxation ; Tax auditing ; Tax reform
Rethinking the IS in IS-LM: adapting Keynesian tools to non-Keynesian economies Part 1
No full textThe IS-LM diagram was developed as a tool for analyzing Keynesian economies-economies with "sticky" prices and myopic households. In a series of two articles, Evan Koenig shows that a graphical apparatus similar to the traditional IS-LM diagram can be used to analyze economies that have optimizing, forward-looking households. In particular, an expectations-augmented variant of IS-LM analysis is fully consistent with a popular real-business-cycle model. Thus, the IS-LM diagram has wide applicability as a pedagogical device and as a framework within which to discuss policy. ; This article deals with an economy in which the capital stock is fixed. A subsequent article will discuss how the expectations-augmented IS-LM framework developed here can be extended to an economy with capital investment.Macroeconomics
Rethinking the IS in IS-LM: adapting Keynesian tools to non-Keynesian economies Part 2
No full textThe IS-LM diagram was developed as a tool for analyzing Keynesian economies-economies with sticky prices and myopic households. In Part 1 of this article, Evan Koenig showed how a graphical apparatus similar to the traditional IS-LM diagram can be used to analyze economies with a fixed capital stock and optimizing, forward-looking households. Part 2 extends the earlier analysis to an economy with capital investment. As before, an expectations-augmented variant of the IS-LM model is found to include a popular real-business-cycle model as a special case. Thus, the IS-LM diagram has wide applicability as a pedagogical device and as a framework within which to discuss policy.Macroeconomics
Forecasting M2 growth: an exploration in real time
No full textEvan Koenig presents a model that has proved successful at reproducing the pattern of M2 growth over the first half of the decade of the 1990s. The model suggests that a large gap between long-term bond yields and M2 deposit rates contributed importantly to the slow money growth that persisted through the end of 1994. The increased availability of bond market mutual funds may also have played a role in the money growth slowdown. The model can be combined with real-time published forecasts of spending and interest rates to yield predictions of future changes in money growth. It has generally performed well in this regard. However, in 1995 a sharp flattening of the yield curve led to a more-pronounced-than-expected acceleration of M2 growth, calling the future forecasting performance of the model into question. Results for an M2 aggregate expanded to include household bond funds are similar.Money supply
The dynamic impact of fundamental tax reform part 1: the basic model
No full textThe Internal Revenue Service remains unpopular, the U.S. savings rate remains low, and pressure to efficiently raise significant new tax revenues seems certain to grow once the baby boom generation reaches retirement age. Consequently, it is likely that alternatives to the current income tax system will receive substantial political and media attention in coming years. In this first of two articles on the economic impact of fundamental tax reform, Evan Koenig and Gregory Huffman describe a framework for analyzing how the adoption of a flat-rate consumption tax would affect the economy over time. Their analysis indicates that replacing the income tax with a consumption tax would have an immediate positive impact on saving and lead, in the long run, to higher levels of consumption, wages, and stock prices and to lower interest rates. In the short run, however, interest rates would probably rise, and consumption and stock prices would probably decline.Taxation
Are the permanent-income model of consumption and the accelerator model of investment compatible?
No full textConsumption (Economics) ; Interest rates ; Saving and investment
Monetary policy prospects
No full textIn this article Evan Koenig looks at measures of the Federal Reserve’s policy stance and discusses why short-term interest rates will almost certainly have to increase at some point. The article also examines the historical relationship between Federal Reserve policy, inflation and resource slack for insights on future rate changes. Koenig concludes that a wide range of policy outcomes are plausible over the next two years, depending on the strength of the recovery, the economy’s growth potential, and the sustainable unemployment rate—variables that economists can’t, unfortunately, estimate with much confidence.>Interest rates ; Unemployment
Optimal monetary policy in an economy with sticky nominal wages
No full textIn this article, Evan Koenig derives the optimal monetary policy rule for an economy with contractual wage agreements. The optimal rule has the monetary authority target a weighted average of aggregate output and the price level. In a realistic special case, the optimal rule calls for the monetary authority to target aggregate nominal spending. The optimal rule is quite general in form, encompassing policy proposals made by such prominent economists as Robert Hall and John Taylor. ; Koenig points out that if the monetary authority responds optimally to economic shocks, it will be difficult to distinguish the effects of monetary policy from the effects of the shocks themselves. So, the important contribution that monetary policy makes to the economy may easily be overlooked. Paradoxically, only insofar as monetary policy is implemented with error will it be apparent that monetary policy matters.Monetary policy ; Wages
Nominal feedback rules for monetary policy: some comments
No full textMonetary policy - United States
- …
