Showing papers in "International Economic Review in 2013"

A DYNAMIC MODEL OF HOUSING DEMAND: ESTIMATION AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS*: a dynamic model of housing demand

Abstract: Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) we specify, estimate and simulate a dynamic structural model of housing demand. Our model generalizes previous applied econometric work by incorporating realistic features of the housing market including non-convex adjustment costs from buying and selling a home, credit constraints from minimum downpayment requirements and uncertainty about the evolution of incomes and home prices. We argue that these features are critical for capturing salient features of housing demand observed in the PSID. After estimating the model we use it to simulate how consumer behavior responds to house price and income declines as well as tightening credit. These experiments are motivated by the U.S. recession starting in December of 2007 that saw large falls in home prices, large negative income shocks for many households and tightening credit standards. In the short run, relatively few households adjust their housing stock. Households respond instead by reducing non-housing consumption and reducing wealth because they wish to avoid losing their home and the associated adjustment costs. Households that adjust in the short run are those hit with a series of bad shocks, such as a negative income shock and a home price decline. A larger proportion of households do adjust their consumption in the long run, increasing their housing stock since housing is less expensive. However, such changes may occur several years after the shocks listed above.

House prices, sales, and time on the market: a search-theoretic framework

Abstract: We assess the ability of a standard search and matching framework to account for the cyclical properties of key macroeconomic time series of the housing market. We calibrate a model with aggregate demand and supply shocks to match selected business cycle properties of vacancies and sales in the United States. Our model reproduces the cyclical time series properties of house prices and the positive and negative comovement of prices with sales and time on the market, respectively. Search and matching frictions produce trading delays that augment the volatility of prices and propagate the effect of aggregate shocks to future periods.

Estimating incentive and welfare effects of nonstationary unemployment benefits

Abstract: The distribution of unemployment duration in our equilibrium matching model with spell-dependent unemployment benefits displays time-varying exit rates. Building on semi-Markov processes, we translate these rates into an expression for the aggregate unemployment rate. Structural estimation using German microdata allows us to discuss the effects of an unemployment benefit reform (Hartz IV). The reform reduced unemployment by less than 0.1 percentage points. Contrary to general beliefs, the net wage for most skill and regional groups increased. Taking the insurance effect of unemployment benefits into account, however, the reform is welfare reducing for 76% of workers.

Tax competition in a simple model with heterogeneous firms: how larger markets reduce profit taxes*

Abstract: An important puzzle in corporate taxation is that effective tax rates have fallen significantly while tax revenue has simultaneously risen in most countries. Moreover, the gross profitability of firms seems to be lower in high-tax countries, even though standard models of international investment would yield the opposite conclusion. We offer an explanation for these stylized facts by setting up a simple two-country model of tax competition with heterogenous firms. In this model a unique, asymmetric Nash equilibrium can be shown to exist, provided that countries are sufficiently different with respect to their exogenous market conditions. In equilibrium the larger country levies the higher tax rate and attracts the high-cost firms. A simultaneous expansion of both markets intensifies tax competition and causes both countries to reduce their tax rates, despite higher corporate tax bases.

On the sources of aggregate fluctuations in emerging economies

Abstract: Recent research on macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging economies has advocated introducing a stochastic productivity trend or allowing for interest rate shocks and financial frictions. We estimate a model that encompasses these two approaches, shedding light on their relative merits and on how financial frictions affect the transmission of shocks. The model accounts for aggregate fluctuations by assigning a dominant role to financial frictions in amplifying conventional (temporary) productivity shocks, whereas trend shocks play a minor role. A link between spreads and expected future productivity emerges as essential for a reasonable approximation to the data.

Profitability of Product Bundling

Abstract: Using copulas to model the stochastic dependence of values, this article establishes new general conditions for the profitability of product bundling. A multiproduct monopolist generally achieves higher profit from mixed bundling than from separate selling if consumer values for two of its products are negatively dependent, are independent, or have sufficiently limited positive dependence. The profitability of monopoly bundling also extends to situations where a multiproduct firm competes with a single-product rival.

School discipline: a source or salve for the racial achievement gap?†

Abstract: Racial disparities in school discipline are believed to contribute to the persistent achievement gap between black and white students. In this article, I estimate the relationship between school discipline and achievement within a structural model, taking into account the spillover effects of disruptive behavior. I find that discipline has an overall positive influence on student performance and that the racial gap in discipline stemming from cross-school variation in discipline policies is consistent with achievement maximization. Integrating schools can close both the discipline and achievement gaps; however, overall achievement is reduced since schools are less able to target their discipline policies.

Tax competition, relative performance and policy imitation

Abstract: Rather than about their absolute payoffs, governments in fiscal competition often seem to care about their performance relative to other governments. Moreover, they often appear to mimic policies observed elsewhere. I study such behavior in a standard tax competition game. Both with relative payoff concerns and for imitative policies, evolutionary stability for games with finitely many players is the appropriate solution concept. Independently of the number of jurisdictions involved, an evolutionarily stable tax policy coincides with the competitive outcome of a tax competition game with infinitely many players. It, thus, involves drastic efficiency losses.

VEHICLE CURRENCY*: vehicle currency

Abstract: Historically, the world economy has been dominated by a single currency accepted in the exchange of goods and assets among countries. In recent decades, the U.S. dollar has played this role. The dollar acts as a “vehicle currency” in the sense that agents in nondollar economies will generally engage in currency trade indirectly using the U.S. dollar instead of using direct bilateral trade among their own currencies. A vehicle currency is desirable when there are transactions costs of exchange. This article constructs a dynamic general equilibrium model of a vehicle currency. We explore the nature of the efficiency gains arising from a vehicle currency and show how it depends on the total number of currencies in existence, the size of the vehicle currency economy, and the monetary policy followed by the vehicle currency’s government. We find that there can be significant welfare gains to a vehicle currency in a system of many independent currencies. But these gains are asymmetrically weighted toward the residents of the vehicle currency country. The survival of a vehicle currency places natural limits on the monetary policy of the vehicle currency country.

Relativity, inequality, and optimal nonlinear income taxation

Abstract: How does concern for consumption relative to others ('relativity') affect the structure of optimal nonlinear income taxation? Our article provides three sets of answers to this general question. First, it supports the conclusion in the literature that relativity leads to higher marginal tax rates. In doing so, it both generalizes some of the conditions under which this result is obtained in the literature and fleshes out the detailed structure for optimal marginal tax rates for specific functional forms for distribution, utility function, and social welfare function. Second, the article goes beyond the literature and examines the impact of relativity on the progression of optimal marginal tax rates. By and large, we find support for greater progressivity, defined as the steepness of the rise of the marginal tax rate schedule, as relativity concern increases. Third, none of the papers in the literature, to our knowledge, examines the interplay of relativity and inequality in determining the optimal structure of income taxes. Our special analytical cases and more general numerical calculations support the conclusion that higher inequality dampens the positive impact of greater relativity on the level and the progression of marginal tax rates. More work is needed to further explore this interaction between relativity and inequality that our analysis has uncovered.

Measuring Economic Insecurity

Abstract: We provide a systematic treatment of the notion of economic insecurity, assuming that an individual’s sentiment of insecurity depends on the current wealth level and its variations experienced in the past. We think of wealth as a comprehensive variable encompassing anything that may help in coping with adverse occurrences. The current wealth level could also be interpreted as incorporating the individual’s evaluation of future prospects. Variations in wealth experienced in the recent past are given higher weight than experiences that occurred in the more distant past. Two classes of measures are characterized with sets of plausible and intuitive axioms.

The evolution of education: a macroeconomic analysis

Abstract: Between 1940 and 2000 there was a substantial increase in educational attainment in the United States. What caused this trend? We develop a model of human capital accumulation that features a nondegenerate distribution of educational attainment in the population. We use this framework to assess the quantitative contribution of technological progress and changes in life expectancy in explaining the evolution of educational attainment. The model implies an increase in average years of schooling of 24%, which is the increase observed in the data. We find that technological variables and in particular skill-biased technical change represent the most important factors in accounting for the increase in educational attainment. The strong response of schooling to changes in income is informative about the potential role of educational policy and the impact of other trends affecting lifetime income.

Land use regulation as a barrier to entry: evidence from the texas lodging industry

Abstract: In the U.S., local governments regulate private land use mainly through zoning. By creating a barrier to entry and lessening competition in local business markets, their regulation has the potential to generate a distortion. This paper assesses the empirical relevance of this hypothesis using microdata on midscale Texas chain hotels and land use regulation data collected from their local municipalities. I construct a dynamic entry-exit model of midscale hotel chains. By endogenizing their entry decisions, the model explicitly considers hotel chains’reactions to the stringency of land use regulation. Reduced form regressions indicate that local markets under stringent regulation tend to undergo fewer entries. To identify the extent to which high entry cost due to stringent land use regulation explains this negative correlation, I estimate structural

Income redistribution and public good provision: an experiment

Abstract: We investigate experimentally the relevance of Warr's neutrality theorem (1983). In our test treatments we implement an unexpected income redistribution among group members. We compare treatments with equalizing (unequalizing) redistribution to benchmark treatments without redistribution, starting either with an equal or unequal income distribution. Our data are consistent with the neutrality theorem: redistribution (either equalizing or unequalizing) does not affect the amount of voluntarily provided public good. However at the individual level we observe that subjects tend to under-adjust with respect to the predicted Nash-adjustment. We also observe an insignificant adjustment asymmetry between the poor and the rich: after redistribution subjects who become poorer lower their contribution by a larger amount than subjects who become richer increase their contribution. Finally we also observe a general tendency for poor subjects to over-contribute significantly more than rich subjects.

Financial development and the sources of growth and convergence

Abstract: We extend the production frontier framework employed by Kumar and Russell (2002) and Henderson and Russell (2005) by incorporating financial development. O ur analysis convincingly shows that (1) failure to account for financial development overstates the role of physical capital accumulation in labor productivity growth, (2) most of this overstated contribution stems from the efficiency-enhancing role of well-functioning financial institutions, (3) international polarization is solely driven by efficiency changes (catching-up), and (4) increased distributional dispersion of productivity is primarily driven by technological change. Model’s extensions to account for the growth effect of changes in the institutional environment only add to the argument about the overstated role of physical capital and reinforce the importance of financial development in explaining growth.

Environmental management policy under international carbon leakage

Abstract: This article studies environmental management policy when two fossil-fuel-consuming countries noncooperatively regulate greenhouse-gas emissions through emission taxes or quotas. The presence of carbon leakage caused by fuel-price changes affects the tax-quota equivalence. We explore each country's incentive to choose a policy instrument in a two-stage policy choice game and find subgame-perfect Nash equilibria. This sheds new light on the questions of which policy instrument is more stringent and of why adopted instruments could be different among countries. In particular, our result suggests a reason why developing countries tend to employ emission taxes whereas developed countries tend to adopt quotas.

Accounting for the timing of first marriage

Abstract: Among first marriages in the United States, grooms are on average 1.7 years older than their brides. Traditionally, this fact is explained by sex differences in income. We use a general equilibrium, overlapping generations search model economy to show instead that sex differences in fecundity are essential to account for the age gap at first marriage, whereas sex differences in income play a secondary role. Our model economy also accounts for other facts on the timing of first marriages that the literature has overlooked.

Nonstationary relational contracts with adverse selection

Abstract: I develop a model of nonstationary relational contracts in order to study internal wage dynamics. Workers are heterogeneous, and each worker’s ability is both private information and fixed for all time. Learning therefore occurs within employment relationships. The inferences, however, are confounded by moral hazard. Incentive provision is restricted by an inability to commit to long-term contracts. Relational contracts, which must be self-enforcing, must therefore be used. The wage dynamics in the optimal contract, which are pinned down by the tension between incentive provision and contractual enforcement, are intimately related to the learning effect.

A Dynamic Model of Housing Demand: Estimation and Policy Implications

Abstract: In the U.S., macroeconomic policy makers are concerned about how consumers will respond to falling incomes, nominal home prices, falling income, rising mortgage interest rates and tightening credit standards. In order to address these questions, we estimate and simulate a dynamic structural model of housing demand. In the model, consumers maximize expected discounted lifetime utility from housing services and a composite consumption good. The model allows for realistic features of the housing market including non-convex adjustment costs from buying and selling a home and credit constraints from minimum downpayment requirements. We use the forward simulation procedure of Bajari, Benkard and Levin (2007) to estimate the structural parameters, especially the elasticity of substitution between consumption and housing services, using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Given the estimated model parameters, we simulate the partial equilibrium consumption and housing and

Legal institutions, innovation and growth

Abstract: We analyze the relationship between legal institutions, innovation, and growth. We compare a rigid legal system (the law is set before the technological innovation) and a flexible one (the law is set after observing the new technology). The flexible system dominates in terms of welfare, amount of innovation, and output growth at intermediate stages of technological development—periods when legal change is needed. The rigid system is preferable at early stages of technological development, when commitment problems are severe. For mature technologies, the two legal systems are equivalent. We find that rigid legal systems may induce excessive R&D investment.

Competitive search, efficiency, and multiworker firms*

Abstract: I study competitive search equilibrium in an environment where firms operate a decreasing-returns production technology and hire multiple workers simultaneously. Firms post wages, possibly several of them. The equilibrium can feature wage dispersion even though all firms and workers are ex ante identical. Unlike the benchmark where firms hire a single worker, hiring is constrained inefficient. Efficiency requires that firms commit to the number of hires, pay all applicants, or pay wages that depend on the number of applicants. Under wage-posting, the inefficiency is highest at intermediate levels of labor market tightness.

Bubbles in Prices of Exhaustible Resources

Abstract: This article proposes a test for the presence of a bubble in the price of an exhaustible resource A bubble is accompanied by a rise in the storage-to-consumption ratio: Consumption peters out, and a fraction of the original stock is held forever The test suggests there is a bubble in the price of oil and in the market for high-end Bordeaux wines, but other explanations are also possible A bubble reduces welfare regardless of whether there are other stores of value, particularly fiat money

The welfare gains of age‐related optimal income taxation

Abstract: Using an overlapping generations model with skill uncertainty and private savings, we quantify the gains of age-dependent labor income taxation. The total steady-state welfare gain of switching from age-independent to age-dependent nonlinear taxation varies between 2.4% and 4% of GDP. Part of the gain descends from relaxing incentive-compatibility constraints and part is due to capital-accumulation effects. The welfare gain is of about the same magnitude as that which can be achieved by moving from linear to nonlinear income taxation. Finally, the welfare loss from tax-exempting interest income is negligible under an optimal age-dependent labor income tax.

Derivative Ideas and the Value of Intangible Assets

Abstract: We build a general equilibrium model where growth is driven by two invention types: fundamental ideas that cause creative destruction, and derivative ideas that enhance the value of existing inventions. The model provides a new mapping from microeconomic, patent data to aggregate total factor productivity growth and the aggregate value of privately owned knowledge. We show how to measure the frequency of derivative ideas and the rate of creative destruction. We estimate that derivative ideas account for 70–80% of all patents and their presence more than doubles the value of knowledge capital relative to what the measured innovation rate might otherwise imply.

The Output and Welfare Effects of Government Spending Shocks over the Business Cycle

Abstract: How does the output response to a change in government spending vary over the business cycle? What are the welfare eects of spending shocks? This paper studies the state-dependence of the output and welfare eects of shocks to government purchases in a DSGE model with real and nominal frictions and a rich scal nancing structure. Both the output multiplier (the change in output for a one dollar change in government spending) and the welfare multiplier (the consumption equivalent change in welfare for the same change in spending) move signicantly across states, but tend to co-move negatively with one another. In an historical simulation, the output multiplier is countercyclical (correlation with detrended output of -0.4) and strongly negatively correlated with the welfare multiplier (correlation between multipliers of -0.9).

Central bank independence and the monetary instrument problem

Abstract: We study the monetary instrument problem in a dynamic noncooperative game between separate, discretionary, fiscal and monetary policy makers. We show that monetary instruments are equivalent only if the policy makers' objectives are perfectly aligned; otherwise an instrument problem exists. When the central bank is benevolent while the fiscal authority is short-sighted relative to the private sector, excessive public spending and debt emerge under a money growth policy but not under an interest rate policy. Despite this property, the interest rate is not necessarily the optimal instrument.

Competition and crowding out in the market for outpatient substance abuse treatment

Abstract: U.S. markets for outpatient substance abuse treatment (OSAT) include for-profit, nonprofit, and public clinics. We study OSAT provision using new methods on equilibrium market structure in differentiated product markets. This allows us to describe clinics as heterogeneous in their objectives, their responses to exogenous market characteristics, and their responses to one another. Consistent with crowding out of private treatment, we find that markets with public clinics are less likely to have private clinics. In markets with low insurance coverage, low incomes, or high shares of nonwhite addicts, however, public clinics are relatively likely to be the sole willing providers of OSAT.

Some essentials of a workable guest‐worker program*

Abstract: A guest-worker program provides an appealing way of addressing labor shortages in an advanced country. It requires, however, that foreign workers are willing to return home when their work permit expires. I examine how immigration policies, enforcement measures, and opportunities available in various markets at home and abroad affect the behavior of program participants. Welfare of a migrant who obeys the rules of the program is compared with that of workers who choose other options in order to define the conditions under which temporary migration is attractive to potential migrants and at the same time consistent with voluntary return.

Why foreign ownership may be good for you

Abstract: We develop a two-country model with heterogeneous producers and rent-sharing at the firm level. We identify two sources of a multinational wage premium: A composition effect because multinational firms are more productive, make higher profits, and pay higher wages, and a firm-level wage effect, because a firm makes higher global profits and thus pays higher wages in its home market when becoming multinational. With two identical countries, the wage premium is fully explained by firm characteristics. Allowing for technology differences between countries, a residual wage premium exists in the technologically backward country but not in the advanced country.

Roy model sorting and non -random selection in the valuation of a statistical life

Abstract: Wage-hedonics is used to recover the value of a statistical life (VSL) by exploiting the fact that workers who choose riskier occupations will be compensated with a higher wage. However, Roy (1951) suggests that observed wage distributions will be distorted if individuals select into jobs according to idiosyncratic returns. We first illustrate how this type of sorting may bias wage-hedonic VSL estimates. We then describe and implement a new estimation strategy that corrects that bias. Using data from the CPS, we recover VSL estimates that are three to four times larger than those based on the traditional techniques, statistically significant, and robust to a wide array of specifications.