Fiscal harmonization in view of the Euro adoption: Economic implications for Poland

In this paper, we investigate the ex ante effects of fiscal policy harmonization that might be necessary for the adoption of the common currency on economic growth in Poland using a neoclassical dynamic two-sector general equilibrium model. We study two fiscal policy scenarios. In the first one, we adjust all taxes to German and EU-27 levels, respectively, while in the second one, we change only consumption taxes to German and EU-27 levels. We find that in the first scenario, the current Polish taxes yield the highest rate of growth due to lower capital taxation. However, in the second scenario, German and EU-27 taxes yield the highest rate of growth due to the lower consumption tax on capital-intensive good. From a policy perspective, our results suggest that fiscal policy with lower taxes on capital and capital-intensive goods can generate a higher rate of growth in the long-run. In the case of fiscal harmonization, our findings propose adopting only German or EU-27 consumption tax structure into the Polish tax system.     

关于实施结构性减税政策若干问题的分析

2011年中央经济工作会议提出,2012年我国要继续实施积极的财政政策。结构性减税政策在积极的财政政策中具有重要的地位和作用。近年来,我国实施的结构性减税政策具有多税种并用、多手段并举、多环节并促的特点,这一政策在减轻企业和居民税收负担、鼓励和扩大内需、引导经济结构战略性调整、保障和改善民生等方面产生了积极效应。从动态上看,减税政策对经济的刺激作用在一定程度上增强了经济活力,培育了新的税源,为国家继续实施积极的财政政策提供了可靠的财力保障。     

Fiscal Policy and Urban and Rural Residents＇ Marginal Propensity to Consume

基于代表性家庭最优消费决策及其与财政政策的关系,估计中国财政政策对城乡居民边际消费倾向的影响,结果表明,自1998年至今,城乡居民边际消费倾向的下降幅度超过20％。城乡居民边际消费倾向下降,．除源于收入分配、经济发展程度、预期、消费结构等因素的影响外,与财政政策运用也有很大关系。其中,未预期到的财政政策冲击对居民边际消费倾向产生的综合效应显著为负。以未预期到的税收增加为融资工具的策略选择,大大抑制了结构调整的正面效应。因此,扩大居民消费,不仅要通过财政增收,提高居民消费能力,而且要通过调整财政收支策略,稳定居民消费预期,提升居民边际消费倾向。     

The Ageing of Australia: Fiscal Sustainability,Intergenerational Equity and Inter‐temporal Fiscal Balance

Australian public policy makers are presently confronted with significant demographic changes that will profoundly affect the formulation of rational economic and social policy over the long term. This paper seeks to outline the potential impact of this demographic change and place it in historical perspective. The challenges posed by an ageing population for fiscal policy are explored and it is stressed that policy inertia will invite severe costs in future. It is argued that an appropriate policy stance should be developed in the context of a framework for inter‐temporal fiscal balance not only to focus on long‐run fiscal sustainability, but also to include considerations of intergenerational equity.     

Spillover effects of taxes on government debt: a spatial panel approach

It is claimed that tax policy is neither time- nor space-independent due to cross-border tax base mobility, which induces spillovers. Specifically, fiscal shocks in one country are supposed to have an impact on fiscal policies in other countries. Different types of taxes influence economies differently. This paper addresses the question of their impact on government debt. Within a framework of spatial econometric modeling, we evaluate the impact of capital, labor and consumption taxes on public debt in 34 European countries in 2002–2011, and find strong spatial spillovers. We show that a consumption tax and, to a lesser degree, a capital tax significantly affect the sovereign debt, and that the global relations play a leading role (i.e. dominate the local ones) in shaping fiscal policy.     

Behavioural insights,nudge and the choice environment in obesity policy

As obesity constitutes a growing health concern over the world, it has also become an important part of public policy agendas. This paper critically analyses the development of the policy debate and measures around obesity in the UK. The paper contributes to the debate by challenging the current individualized nature of nudge policies as the most popular application of behavioural economics to policy. We argue that it may be possible to change the choice architecture of individuals through nudge, but the overall effectiveness of such policies would be limited because the broader social, economic and political architecture shaping individual choices is ignored. The case of the UK provides a good illustration where concrete policy measures are predominantly focused on choice despite growing recognition of the structural determinants of obesity, and the governments are thus able to avoid threatening free markets and existing economic interests. Whilst the recently introduced sugar tax constitutes a certain shift in policy, it clearly remains an exception within the whole policy package.     

Shifting taxes away from labour enhances equity and fiscal efficiency

This paper analyzes the effects of a hypothetical tax reform in Italy, which makes current tax credits more generous and refundable, shifting the tax burden from labour to property. Our methodology contains novel features of great relevance for policy analysis: first, a structural model of labour supply of both employees and self-employed; second, a labour market equilibrium model that encompasses demand side constraints; last, detailed tax system simulation under fiscal neutrality. The empirical findings provide guidance for policy makers’ actions to enhance equity and efficiency of tax system and confirm the relevance of the methodological approach.     

Tax collection efficiency in OECD countries improves via decentralization,simplification, digitalization and education

This paper offers an assessment of tax administration performance and provides evidence of the relationship between fiscal decentralization (and tax structure) and the technical efficiency of tax collection. The initial stage of the investigation consists of a data envelopment analysis (DEA) to obtain technical efficiency estimates for a sample of 28 OECD countries over the period 2004–2017. In a second stage, we explore how technical efficiency is affected by fiscal decentralization and tax structure variables. The results show how the degree of fiscal decentralization has a positive and significant impact on the technical efficiency of tax collection. They also reveal a relevant role of tax structure choices and the ratio of indirect to direct taxes, which can significantly affect tax collection efficiency. Finally, we extract some policy implications.     

Fiscal Cycles and the Low-Level Equilibrium under the Qing: A Comparative Analysis

This article questions the recent scholarship that attempts to draw parallels between Qing China before 1800 and the so-called fiscal-military states in early modern Europe. Beginning with a survey of “fiscal cycles” in China from the 1640s to the 1850s, the author argues that border wars and territorial expansion had little impact on the Qing state’s tax system and bureaucracy. Contrary to the high level of taxation necessitated by escalation in military spending among the contemporary European states, the Qing pursued the policy of light taxation by freezing land tax rates and practicing universal tax exemption. What prevailed in the Qing fiscal system thus was a “low-level equilibrium,” in which the fixed amount of revenues was sufficient to cover the state’s fixed amount of regular expenditures and generate a sizeable amount of surpluses.     

Has Germany’s temporary VAT rates cut as part of the COVID-19 fiscal stimulus boosted growth?

On 3 June 2020, the German government announced a EUR 130 billion fiscal stimulus package to stimulate market demand and jumpstart the economy in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the spring of 2020. The most prominent measure of this package is an unconventional fiscal policy in the form of a temporary VAT rates cut for six months, from 1 July to 31 December 2020. Employing a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) framework, we study the efficiency of the VAT tax rates cut for ameliorating the consequences of the pandemic recession. The simulation of the calibrated DSGE model yields a tax policy-induced real GDP increase of about 0.3% points for 2020.     

The political economy of U.S. economic performance: is the president responsible?

A recurring theme in electoral politics is that American voters hold the president responsible for the state of the economy. Ironically, many Presidency scholars argue that presidents are ill equipped to manage the economy because other variables compete with and complicate the effects of fiscal policy. These include international variables, private market forces, and monetary policy, among others. Using simultaneous equation methods, we examine the direct and indirect effects of fiscal policy on economic performance while controlling for a variety of other determinants of economic performance. We find that fiscal policy plays a significant role in influencing unemployment and economic growth in the United States, even after controlling for a variety of other determinants of economic performance. We close by discussing the importance of linking the econometric modeling literature with the literature on presidential management of the economy.     

The effect of the rescue plans and the need for policies to increase economic growth

This paper evaluates the economic impact of discretionary fiscal and monetary actions taken in the United States during 2020 and 2021. The fiscal actions are The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, or the “CARES” Act, passed in March 2020; The Consolidated Appropriations Act, passed in December 2020; and The American Rescue Plan Act, passed in March 2021. The paper focuses on the impact of the “economic impact payments” that underlie these fiscal actions. The paper also examines discretionary monetary policy actions taken during the same period. The overall implication is that there is a need to return to policies that increase economic growth and stability, including rules-based fiscal and monetary policy, rather than to continue with these one-time discretionary actions.     

Getting low educated and older people into work: The role of fiscal policy

Raising employment, in particular employment among older individuals and low educated individuals, stands high on the agenda of policy makers in many OECD countries. Increased sensitivity in recent years to rising inequality has made the challenge only larger. In this paper we evaluate alternative fiscal policy scenarios to face this challenge. We construct and use an overlapping generations model for an open economy where individuals differ not only by age, but also by innate ability and human capital. The model allows us to study effects on aggregate employment, per capita income and welfare, as well as effects for specific age and ability groups. We show that well-considered fiscal policy changes can significantly improve macroeconomic productive efficiency, without increasing intergenerational or intragenerational welfare inequality. Our results strongly prefer a reduction in the labor tax rate on older workers and on all low-wage earners, financed by an overall reduction in non-employment benefits. An alternative financing option is to raise the consumption tax rate. These results are to be seen as long-run effects for economies at potential output.     

The hidden welfare state, tax expenditure and social policy A comparative overview

This article describes, discusses and presents information about tax expenditure and its relation to social policy. It stresses that the hidden welfare state strongly influences social policy and that only looking at the direct provision of welfare goods may be misleading when making comparisons between countries. The article presents new figures on tax expenditure in relation to social policy and does so in a comparative perspective. It is argued that tax expenditure seems to have an upside down effect, but further research is needed to substantiate this. It concludes that tax expenditure strongly influences the provision, financing and delivery of social policy, and tax expenditure therefore has to be more fully integrated into the analysis of the welfare state.     

Macroeconomic stabilization of primary commodities price cycles in developing economies

This paper proposes a strategy for stabilizing macroeconomic policy to address jointly the effects of changes in the prices of food, minerals and energy (oil). Our approach differs from the general literature, which analyzes the effects of a commodity boom or bust and therefore the solutions in terms of economic policy separately, that is, by type of commodity. The stabilization strategy that we propose considers a key fact affecting many open economies, namely, that they not only are affected by increases or decreases in commodity prices, but also benefit from them. Consequently, we use a structural model for an open economy with restricted households to show that welfare could be improved with a fiscal rule incorporating transfers to stabilize household consumption. This strategy noticeably dominates an aggressive monetary policy focused only on stabilizing inflation and a fiscal policy that has an excessive bias toward saving income from exports.     

生态补偿与横向财政转移支付的理论与对策研究

过去的分税制改革确立的财政转移支付制度不能适应人口、资源、环境的协调发展,探讨适应限制类和禁止类主体功能区建设所需的基于生态补偿的横向财政转移支付制度设计,认为应该根据这两类区域进行生态保护建设的直接成本和放弃发展经济的机会成本,以及受益区域的支付意愿来共同确定横向财政转移支付的规模,最后提出了改革现有以纵向为主的财政转移支付体系,逐渐完善以生态补偿为主的横向财政转移支付制度的政策建议。     

Were We Really All in it Together? The Distributional Effects of the 2010–15 UK Coalition Government's Tax‐benefit Policy Changes

This article examines the distributional impacts of changes to benefits, tax credits, pensions and direct taxes between the UK general elections of May 2010 and May 2015. The changes did not have a common effect on all household incomes; nor did the direct tax‐benefit changes contribute to deficit reduction. Effectively, reductions in benefits and tax credits financed part of the direct taxes cuts, but the overall net fiscal cost increased pressure for cuts in other public services and increases in other (more regressive) taxes. The main gains were in the upper middle of the income distribution, and the main losers were at the bottom and those close to, but not at, the very top. Across most of the distribution the changes were regressive. By comparing with other analyses of policy changes in the same period, we illustrate the importance of analytical choices and assumptions for detailed conclusions on their distributional effects. We also show how some groups were clear losers or gained little on average – including lone parent families, large families and families with younger children. Others were gainers, including two‐earner couples, and those in their fifties and early sixties. The findings show that a dominant feature of the period was that the combination of higher tax‐free income tax allowances, financed by cuts in benefits and tax credits, was generally regressive. As this combination also lies at the heart of the proposed policies of the Conservative government since 2015, we would expect these effects to be intensified in the coming years.     

Social capital and the impact of the recent economic crisis: Comparing the effects of economic and fiscal policy developments

In this contribution, we offer an analysis that evaluates the impact of the recent financial and economic crisis on social capital. An economic crisis offers a unique chance to study people's associational lives, volunteering, network-making, and trust-building under duress. Theoretical perspectives on the relationship between social capital and economic development emphasize a reciprocal relationship between the two. Therefore, we hypothesize that if economic performance is compromised, this might lead to an erosion of social capital. More importantly, however, we also argue that states can actively intervene by means of fiscal policy measures. We will illustrate our approach by comparing 29 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries before and after the crisis. Using qualitative comparative analysis, we demonstrate that imperatives related to fiscal policy stimuli provide leverage on social capital development.     

Overcoming the zero interest-rate bound: A quantitative prescription

Using a macro-econometric model we provide a quantitative estimate of the cash transfer or tax cut that would achieve recovery from a severe recession when the central bank is unable to achieve full recovery because of the zero bound. We introduce an automatic transfer and simulate its triggering in the severe recession. We find that an automatic transfer that averages 3% of quarterly GDP repeated four times (quarterly) reduces the unemployment rate an additional full percentage point and thereby completes the recovery. We recommend that legislatures enact an automatic counter-cyclical fiscal policy that will assure adequate stimulus without generating a long-term debt problem.     

基于来源视角的城乡居民收入差距与财税制度选择

2001年以来,随着工业反哺农业政策的实施,农民的工资性收入、经营性收入、转移性收入和财产性收入均有所增加,城乡基尼系数逐渐下降。但是,以流转税为主的税制结构和现行财税制度仍制约着城乡居民收入差距的进一步缩小。因而,为增强财税制度调节城乡居民收入的作用,应构建以所得税为主的税制模式,完善增值税和个人所得税,健全房产出租的税制体系,开征资本利得税并增加财政"三农"支出。