In the Great Recession market income of the households in Austria has been reduced and unemployment increased. In this paper we examine the impact of automatic stabilizers on cushioning such income losses. We use ITABENA, an Austrian tax-benefit model, to analyze how shocks on market income and...

This paper provides an estimation of the size of income and demand automatic stabilizers in a representative sample of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. The authors find that when a negative unemployment shock hits the economy, the size of income and demand automatic stabilizers...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the EU and the US to provide income insurance through automatic stabilization in the recent economic crisis. We find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38% of a proportional income shock in the EU, compared to 32% in the US....

In this paper we propose a Good Asset Purchase Plan (GAPP), as a cure for the falling U.S. housing market and a stimulus for economic recovery. The central theme of the plan is that the U.S. Government directly purchases minority shares (say, up to 20%) of good assets such as residential...

This paper assesses the optimal level of public debt in a new framework where aggregate fluctuations are taken into account. Agents are subject to both aggregate and idiosyncratic shocks and the market structure prevents them from perfectly insuring against the risk. We find that the optimal...

This paper considers the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations on the optimal level of public debt. Households are subject to both aggregate and idiosyncratic risk and insurance market imperfectness prevents them from from fully insuring against risk. We find that the optimal level of public debt...

This paper considers the impact of macroeconomic fluctuations on the optimal level of public debt. Households are subject to both aggregate and idiosyncratic risk and insurance market imperfectness prevents them from from fully insuring against risk. We find that the optimal level of public debt...

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of the tax and transfer systems in the European Union and the US to act as an automatic stabilizer in the current economic crisis. We find that automatic stabilizers absorb 38 per cent of a proportional income shock in the EU, compared to 32 per cent in the...

This paper investigates how tax changes for different income groups affect aggregate economic activity. I construct a measure of who received (or paid for) tax changes in the postwar period using tax return data from NBER's TAXSIM. I aggregate each tax change by income group and state. Variation...

The global financial crisis has lead to a renewed interest in discretionary fiscal stimulus. Advocates of discretionary measures emphasize that government spending can stimulate additional private spending the so-called Keynesian multiplier effect. Thus, we investigate whether the discretionary...