Showing 1 - 8 of 8
One of the central questions in macroeconomics for many years has been whether government policy can affect private saving rates, and if so to what extent and through what channels. The question has remained controversial because, as with other macroeconomic questions, experiments to check...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005714166
We propose an explanation for the wide variation in rates of taxation across developed economies, based on differences in labor market institutions. In "corporatist" economies, which feature centralized labor markets, taxes on labor input will be less distortionary than when labor supply is...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005720222
Analyses of the role of rational speculators in financial markets usually presume that such investors dampen price fluctuations by trading against liquidity or noise traders. This conclusion does not necessarily hold when noise traders follow positive-feedback investment strategies buy when...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005830771
The claim that financial markets are efficient is backed by an implicit argument that misinformed "noise traders" can have little influence on asset prices in equilibrium. If noise traders' beliefs are sufficiently different from those of rational agents to significantly affect prices, then...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005830912
We use the revised estimates of U.S. GNP constructed by Christina Romer (1989) to assess the time-series properties of U.S. output per capita over the past century. We reject at conventional significance levels the null that output is a random walk in favor of the alternative that output is a...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005778856
Recent empirical research has identified a significant amount of volatility in stock prices that cannot be easily explained by changes in fundamentals; one interpretation is that asset prices respond not only to news but also to irrational "noise trading." We assess the welfare effects and...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005778882
This paper argues that the versions of both permanent income and life-cycle theories which have recently become fashionable are inconsistent with the grossest features of cross-country and cross-section data on consumption and income. There is clear evidence that consumption and income growth...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005089030
This paper reviews the current policies for fighting poverty and explores the impact they have had. We begin by reviewing trends in poverty, poverty spending and economic performance. It is immediately apparent that economic performance is the dominant determinant of the measured poverty rate...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005575806