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Chretien Consensus
End of the CHRÉTIEN CONSENSUS? Jason Clemens Milagros Palacios Matthew Lau Niels Veldhuis Copyright ©2017 by the Fraser Institute. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. The authors of this publication have worked independently and opinions expressed by them are, therefore, their own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Fraser Institute or its supporters, Directors, or staff. This publication in no way implies that the Fraser Institute, its Directors, or staff are in favour of, or oppose the passage of, any bill; or that they support or oppose any particular political party or candidate. Date of issue: March 2017 Printed and bound in Canada Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Data End of the Chrétien Consensus? / Jason Clemens, Matthew Lau, Milagros Palacios, and Niels Veldhuis Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-88975-437-9 Contents Introduction 1 Saskatchewan’s ‘Socialist’ NDP Begins the Journey to the Chrétien Consensus 3 Alberta Extends and Deepens the Chrétien Consensus 21 Prime Minister Chrétien Introduces the Chrétien Consensus to Ottawa 32 Myths of the Chrétien Consensus 45 Ontario and Alberta Move Away from the Chrétien Consensus 54 A New Liberal Government in Ottawa Rejects the Chrétien Consensus 66 Conclusions and Recommendations 77 Endnotes 79 www.fraserinstitute.org d Fraser Institute d i ii d Fraser Institute d www.fraserinstitute.org Executive Summary TheChrétien Consensus was an implicit agreement that transcended political party and geography regarding the soundness of balanced budgets, declining government debt, smaller and smarter government spending, and competi- tive taxes that emerged in the early 1990s and lasted through to roughly the mid-2000s. -
Prof Robert Barro
Guest Lecturer Robert Barro MiEMacroeconomic EfffftfGtects from Government Purchases and Taxes Robert J. Barro is Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution of Stanford University , and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and a B.S. in physics from Caltech. Barro is co-editor of Harvard’s Quarterly Journal of Economics and was recently President of the Western Economic Association and Vice President of the American Economic Association. He is honorary dean of the China Economics & Management Academy, Central University of Beijing. He was a viewpoint columnist for Business Week from 1998 to 2006 and a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal from 1991 to 1998. He has written extensively on macroeconomics and economic growth. Noteworthy research includes empirical determinants of economic growth , economic effects of public debt and budget deficits, and the formation of monetary policy. Recent books include Macroeconomics: A Modern Approach from Thompson/Southwestern, Economic Growth (2nd edition, written with Xavier Sala-i-Martin), Nothing Is Sacred: Economic Ideas for the New Millennium, Determinants of Economic Growth, and Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society, all from MIT Press. Current research focuses on two very different topics: the interplay between religion and political economy and the impact of rare disasters on asset markets Where: Level 5, The Treasury, 1 The Terrace When: 1:30 pm - 3:00 pm Thursday 17 March 2011 RSVP: Ellen Shields by Friday 4 March 2011 To confirm your attendance, contact: For more information, contact: Ellen Shields Grant Scobie Program Administrator Convenor Academic Linkages Programme [email protected] [email protected] Ph: 04 890 7202 Ph: 04 917 6005. -
Estimating the Effects of Fiscal Policy in OECD Countries
Estimating the e®ects of ¯scal policy in OECD countries Roberto Perotti¤ This version: November 2004 Abstract This paper studies the e®ects of ¯scal policy on GDP, in°ation and interest rates in 5 OECD countries, using a structural Vector Autoregression approach. Its main results can be summarized as follows: 1) The e®ects of ¯scal policy on GDP tend to be small: government spending multipliers larger than 1 can be estimated only in the US in the pre-1980 period. 2) There is no evidence that tax cuts work faster or more e®ectively than spending increases. 3) The e®ects of government spending shocks and tax cuts on GDP and its components have become substantially weaker over time; in the post-1980 period these e®ects are mostly negative, particularly on private investment. 4) Only in the post-1980 period is there evidence of positive e®ects of government spending on long interest rates. In fact, when the real interest rate is held constant in the impulse responses, much of the decline in the response of GDP in the post-1980 period in the US and UK disappears. 5) Under plausible values of its price elasticity, government spending typically has small e®ects on in°ation. 6) Both the decline in the variance of the ¯scal shocks and the change in their transmission mechanism contribute to the decline in the variance of GDP after 1980. ¤IGIER - Universitµa Bocconi and Centre for Economic Policy Research. I thank Alberto Alesina, Olivier Blanchard, Fabio Canova, Zvi Eckstein, Jon Faust, Carlo Favero, Jordi Gal¶³, Daniel Gros, Bruce Hansen, Fumio Hayashi, Ilian Mihov, Chris Sims, Jim Stock and Mark Watson for helpful comments and suggestions. -
Understanding Development and Poverty Alleviation
14 OCTOBER 2019 Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 UNDERSTANDING DEVELOPMENT AND POVERTY ALLEVIATION The Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel THE ROYAL SWEDISH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, founded in 1739, is an independent organisation whose overall objective is to promote the sciences and strengthen their influence in society. The Academy takes special responsibility for the natural sciences and mathematics, but endeavours to promote the exchange of ideas between various disciplines. BOX 50005 (LILLA FRESCATIVÄGEN 4 A), SE-104 05 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN TEL +46 8 673 95 00, [email protected] WWW.KVA.SE Scientific Background on the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2019 Understanding Development and Poverty Alleviation The Committee for the Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel October 14, 2019 Despite massive progress in the past few decades, global poverty — in all its different dimensions — remains a broad and entrenched problem. For example, today, more than 700 million people subsist on extremely low incomes. Every year, five million children under five die of diseases that often could have been prevented or treated by a handful of proven interventions. Today, a large majority of children in low- and middle-income countries attend primary school, but many of them leave school lacking proficiency in reading, writing and mathematics. How to effectively reduce global poverty remains one of humankind’s most pressing questions. It is also one of the biggest questions facing the discipline of economics since its very inception. -
Development Economics Fall 2015 Economics 2390 Monday and Wednesday 1:00-2:30Pm Class Location: Sever Hall 102 Version: September 2, 2015
Development Economics Fall 2015 Economics 2390 Monday and Wednesday 1:00-2:30pm Class Location: Sever Hall 102 Version: September 2, 2015 Michael Kremer M-20, Littauer Center Department of Economics [email protected] Office Hours: Mondays 4:00-5:00 Email Jeanne Winner [email protected] for appointment Shawn Cole 271 Baker Library, HBS [email protected] Office Hours: By appointment (please email Brian O’Connor: [email protected]) Teaching Assistant: Jack Willis [email protected] Skype: Jack.J.Willis Office Hours: TBA Prerequisites: This will be a technical class and non-Ph.D. students are not permitted to enroll. Ph.D. students are required to have taken or be concurrently taking PhD level microeconomics and econometrics. If you are not a Ph.D. student in economics or public policy then please contact us before enrolling. This class contributes to the fulfillment of requirements for the Development field for Economics Ph.D. students Broad Overview: This class is intended to teach the foundations for doing research in Development Economics. As such it will teach in detail empirical methods and theoretical models which are applied widely across the discipline. Part 1 (taught by Michael Kremer) will set the scene for the class. It will begin with a look at global differences in living standards and then present classical empirical work in macro development which attempts to quantify the roles of differences in capital, human capital and productivity. Next the class will focus in on capital and introduce a research agenda which aims to bridge the gap between growth theory and modern micro development research. -
Christina and David Romer
The Region Christina and David Romer In times of financial turmoil, it is comforting—or at a minimum, illuminating— to receive counsel from those with long-term perspective. Tempered with the lessons of history, their views extract true trend from distracting noise. Guided by precedent, shaped by narrative, checked against data, the conclusions of economic historians are formed slowly and carefully. In the realm of U.S. monetary history, few economists are as qualified to provide such counsel as Christina Romer and David Romer of the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1985, when both received their doctorates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the two have co-authored some of the field’s central analyses of Federal Reserve policymaking, based on thorough scrutiny of Fed documents and painstaking empirical investigation. They’ve made fundamental contributions to the literature on fiscal policy as well. Individually, Christina is well known for her research on the Great Depression and David for his work on microeconomic foundations of Keynesian economics. While their topics and methods are orthodox, their conclusions are often unsettling. Attempts by members of the Federal Open Market Committee to add information to Fed staff forecasts “may lead to misguided actions,” the Romers wrote recently. Monetary policymaking has improved since World War II but not steadily, they’ve concluded; policymakers have gone astray when they deviated from sound economic theory. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the Romers have found, government spending is not reined in by tax cuts. And, according to a celebrated, if “offbeat,” analysis by David, football coaches should be much more aggressive on fourth down. -
API-119: Advanced Macroeconomics for the Open Economy I, Fall 2020
Sep 1, 2020 API-119: Advanced Macroeconomics for the Open Economy I, Fall 2020 Harvard Kennedy School Course Syllabus: prospectus, outline/schedule and readings Staff: Professor: Jeffrey Frankel [email protected] Faculty Assistant: Minoo Ghoreishi [email protected] Teaching Fellow: Can Soylu Course Assistants: Julio Flores, Alberto Huitron & Yi Yang. Email address to send all questions for the teaching team: [email protected]. Times: Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 10:30-11:45 a.m. EST.1 Review Sessions: Tuesdays, 12:30-1:30 pm; Fridays, 1:30-2:30 pm EST.2 Final exam: Friday, Dec. 11, 8:00-11:00 am EST. Prospectus Course Description: This course is the first in the two-course sequence on Macroeconomic Policy in the MPA/ID program. It particularly emphasiZes the international dimension. The general perspective is that of developing countries and other small open economies, defined as those for whom world income, world inflation and world interest rates can be taken as given, and possibly the terms of trade as well. The focus is on monetary, fiscal, and exchange rate policy, and on the determination of the current account balance, national income, and inflation. Models of devaluation include one that focuses on the price of internationally traded goods relative to non-traded goods. A theme is the implications of increased integration of global financial markets. Another is countries’ choice of monetary regime, especially the degree of exchange rate flexibility. Applications include Emerging Market crises and problems of commodity-exporting countries. (Such topics as exchange rate overshooting, speculative attacks, portfolio diversification and debt crises will be covered in the first half of Macro II in February-March.) Nature of the approach: The course is largely built around analytical models. -
Ten Nobel Laureates Say the Bush
Hundreds of economists across the nation agree. Henry Aaron, The Brookings Institution; Katharine Abraham, University of Maryland; Frank Ackerman, Global Development and Environment Institute; William James Adams, University of Michigan; Earl W. Adams, Allegheny College; Irma Adelman, University of California – Berkeley; Moshe Adler, Fiscal Policy Institute; Behrooz Afraslabi, Allegheny College; Randy Albelda, University of Massachusetts – Boston; Polly R. Allen, University of Connecticut; Gar Alperovitz, University of Maryland; Alice H. Amsden, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Robert M. Anderson, University of California; Ralph Andreano, University of Wisconsin; Laura M. Argys, University of Colorado – Denver; Robert K. Arnold, Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy; David Arsen, Michigan State University; Michael Ash, University of Massachusetts – Amherst; Alice Audie-Figueroa, International Union, UAW; Robert L. Axtell, The Brookings Institution; M.V. Lee Badgett, University of Massachusetts – Amherst; Ron Baiman, University of Illinois – Chicago; Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research; Drucilla K. Barker, Hollins University; David Barkin, Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana – Unidad Xochimilco; William A. Barnett, University of Kansas and Washington University; Timothy J. Bartik, Upjohn Institute; Bradley W. Bateman, Grinnell College; Francis M. Bator, Harvard University Kennedy School of Government; Sandy Baum, Skidmore College; William J. Baumol, New York University; Randolph T. Beard, Auburn University; Michael Behr; Michael H. Belzer, Wayne State University; Arthur Benavie, University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill; Peter Berg, Michigan State University; Alexandra Bernasek, Colorado State University; Michael A. Bernstein, University of California – San Diego; Jared Bernstein, Economic Policy Institute; Rari Bhandari, University of California – Berkeley; Melissa Binder, University of New Mexico; Peter Birckmayer, SUNY – Empire State College; L. -
Market Power and Regulation
THE PRIZE IN ECONOMIC SCIENCES 2014 POPULAR SCIENCE BACKGROUND Market power and regulation Jean Tirole is one of the most infuential economists of our time. He has made important theoretical research contributions in a number of areas, but most of all he has clarifed how to understand and regulate industries with a few powerful frms. Tirole is awarded this year’s prize for his analysis of market power and regulation. Regulation is difficult Which activities should be conducted as public services and which should be left to private frms is a question that is always relevant. Many governments have opened up public monopolies to private stakeholders. This has applied to industries such as railways, highways, water, post and telecom- munications – but also to the provision of schooling and healthcare. The experiences resulting from these privatizations have been mixed and it has often been more difcult than anticipated to get private frms to behave in the desired way. There are two main difculties. First, many markets are dominated by a few frms that all infuence prices, volumes and quality. Traditional economic theory does not deal with this case, known as an oligopoly, instead it presupposes a single monopoly or what is known as perfect competition. The second difculty is that the regulatory authority lacks information about the frms’ costs and the quality of the goods and services they deliver. This lack of knowledge often provides regulated frms with a natural advantage. Before Tirole In the 1980s, before Tirole published his frst work, research into regulation was relatively sparse, mostly dealing with how the government can intervene and control pricing in the two extremes of monopoly and perfect competition. -
The Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis and Unemployment Author(S): George A
The Fair Wage-Effort Hypothesis and Unemployment Author(s): George A. Akerlof and Janet L. Yellen Source: The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 105, No. 2 (May, 1990), pp. 255-283 Published by: Oxford University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2937787 . Accessed: 09/10/2013 09:57 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Oxford University Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Quarterly Journal of Economics. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 216.164.44.3 on Wed, 9 Oct 2013 09:57:21 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS Vol. CV May 1990 Issue 2 THE FAIR WAGE-EFFORT HYPOTHESIS AND UNEMPLOYMENT* GEORGE A. AKERLOF AND JANET L. YELLEN This paper introduces the fair wage-effort hypothesis and explores its implica- tions. This hypothesis is motivated by equity theory in social psychology and social exchange theory in sociology. According to the fair wage-effort hypothesis, workers proportionately withdraw effort as their actual wage falls short of their fair wage. Such behavior causes unemployment and is also consistent with observed cross- section wage differentials and unemployment patterns. -
The Future of Finance
THE TOULOUSE SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS MAGAZINE Living economics #16 SPRING THE FUTURE 2018 OF FINANCE Daniel Ershov on Johannes Hörner Ariel Pakes on Patrick Pouyanné the Google Play on how Waze uses why industrial on the energy Store its users organization matters challenge Editor�' message #16 Content� Looking New� & event� to the future 4 Appointments & prizes 5 Save the date Last year marked TSE’s 10th anniversary, a milestone in the long history of economics in Toulouse. 2017 also saw our endowment strengthened through the renewal of our Laboratoire d’Excellence status and an exciting new certification for our “CHESS” graduate school project - Challenges in Economics and Christian Gollier Quantitative Social Sciences. We are grateful for and proud of these strong signals of support which will help our institution tremendously. Researc� TSE wasn’t built in a day. It took more than 30 years for Jean- 6 Reducing search costs Jacques Laffont and the leading academic peers he convinced THE FUTURE Daniel Ershov to join him to accomplish his dream of building a world-class economics department in Toulouse with bright, intense academic OF FINANCE 8 Why would Waze life. We are lucky to be now living that dream, but our ambition send you off-track? for this new year does not waver. We want to aim higher Johannes Hörner and attract the very best talents to the south of France. Our Jean Tirole minds are focused on the future; our new building, now almost 16 Jean Tirole complete, will be another great asset in making our community one of the best Th inker� places in Europe to do research. -
A Macroeconomic Approach to Optimal Unemployment Insurance: Applications†
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 2018, 10(2): 182–216 https://doi.org/10.1257/pol.20160462 A Macroeconomic Approach to Optimal Unemployment Insurance: Applications† By Camille Landais, Pascal Michaillat, and Emmanuel Saez* In the United States, unemployment insurance UI is more generous when unemployment is high. This paper examines( ) whether this pol- icy is desirable. The optimal UI replacement rate is the Baily-Chetty replacement rate plus a correction term measuring the effect of UI on welfare through labor market tightness. Empirical evidence suggests that tightness is inefficiently low in slumps and inefficiently high in booms, and that an increase in UI raises tightness. Hence, the cor- rection term is positive in slumps but negative in booms, and optimal UI is indeed countercyclical. Since there remains some uncertainty about the empirical evidence, the paper provides a thorough sensi- tivity analysis. JEL E24, E32, J64, J65 ( ) n the United States, unemployment insurance UI is more generous when ( ) Iunemployment is high. This policy started as an exceptional measure after the 1957–1958 recession and became a permanent program in 1970. Despite its long history, the policy remains debated. This paper examines whether the policy is desir- able from a welfare perspective. We conduct the welfare analysis in a matching model. We extend the static model from a companion paper Landais, Michaillat, and Saez 2018 into a dynamic model ( ) better suited for quantitative applications Section I . The model features most ( ) effects discussed in the policy debate: the effects of UI on job search, on wages, on job vacancies, and on aggregate unemployment.1 The optimal generosity of UI is given by a sufficient-statistic formula: the optimal replacement rate equals the Baily-Chetty replacement rate, a well-researched entity, plus a correction term mea- suring the effect of UI on social welfare through labor market tightness.