Did the 2008 rebate fail to stimulate consumer spending? In their influential AER articles, John Taylor and Martin Feldstein each claim that BEA aggregate time series data show that the 2008 rebate failed. Re-examining the BEA data, we find that the data instead show there is a high probability...

Did the 2008 rebate fail to stimulate consumer spending? In their recent influential AER articles, John Taylor and Martin Feldstein each claim that BEA aggregate time series data show that the 2008 rebate failed. Re-examining the BEA data, we find that the data instead show there is a high...

This paper simulates the use of transfers to households plus central-bank open-market purchases to generate a recovery of a low-interest-rate economy from a negative demand shock. Transfers to households are automatically triggered in recession; the prescribed anti-recession transfer ratio is...

This paper studies an application of income-related patient cost-sharing. Using data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, we find that varying patient costsharing rates with patient income in the Medicare prescription drug program can reduce the severity of two problems: high...

Using a macroeconometric 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...

The purpose of this paper is to reply to Shapiro and Slemrod's recent article in the American Economic Review (March 2003) and address the broader issue: Is a tax rebate an effective tool for combating a recession? We make three points. First, there are serious problems with their consumer...

The simulations in this paper use actual 2004 data on carbon emissions and per capita GDP from 178 countries to provide a rough estimate of how much better off high-income countries might be by compensating low-income countries to help reduce carbon emissions rather than doing it without their...