We show that tax compliance is volatile and markedly responds to fiscal policy. To explore the consequence of this novel stylized fact, we build a model of sovereign debt with limited commitment and imperfect tax enforcement. Fiscal policy persistently affects the size of the informal economy,...

In RBC models, “disaster risk shocks” reproduce countercyclical risk premia but generate an increase in consumption along the recession and asset price fall, through their effects on agents' preferences (Gourio, 2012). This paper offers a solution to this puzzle by developing a New Keynesian...

In this paper we focus on cycles and trends of some macroeconomic and housing market variables representative of the French economy. In a first part, we empirically show that cycles in the housing sector, measured by housing prices, housing starts, building permits, sales or residential...

This paper investigates whether uncertainty about economic policy plays a role in shaping the credibility and reputation of the central bank in the eyes of the public. In particular, we look at the effect of policy uncertainty for the dynamics of citizens' opinion, being trust, satisfaction or...

The unprecedented tax hikes implemented in Greece in 2010 generated a much lower than expected increase in tax revenues. In this paper, we document a new stylized fact explaining this gap: the strong increase of tax evasion. We then analyze the response of the economy to tax hikes in a stylized...

Theory and evidence suggest that in an environment of well-anchored expectations, temporary economic news or shocks should not affect agents' expectations of inflation in the long term. Our estimated structural VARs show that both long- and short-term inflation expectations are sensitive to...

This paper proposes a classification of the old member countries of the euro area in a structural data rich environment and run a convergence analysis using the same framework. First, we use a clustering approach and identify two structurally distinct groups of countries that are not modified...

This paper presents a revised version of the model OPTIM, proposed by Irac and Sédillot (2002), used at the Banque de France in order to predict French GDP quarterly growth rate, for the current and next quarters. The model is designed to be used on a monthly basis by integrating monthly...

Governments and central banks need to have an accurate and timely assessment of Gross Domestic Product's (GDP) growth rate for the current quarter, as this is essential for providing a reliable and early analysis of the current economic situation. This paper presents a series of models conceived...

The quantitative and dynamic consequence of a social VAT reform, i.e. a fiscal reform consisting in substituting VAT for social contributions, is assessed using two general equilibrium models. The first one is a Walrasian model with no other frictions than distortionary taxation of labor and...