How much fiscal space do Latin American countries have to increase their tax burdens in the long term? This paper provides an answer through Laffer curves estimates for taxes on labor, capital, and consumption for the six largest emerging economies of the region: Argentina, Brazil, Chile,...

Former CBO director Doug Elmendorf recently argued that Congress should account for macroeconomic feedback when scoring major tax and spending policies. In this brief, Donald Marron agrees, arguing that CBO and JCT can implement such dynamic scoring in an objective, nonpartisan manner. Dynamic...

We present new evidence showing that fiscal austerity strengthens support for redistribution, especially for the relatively well-off. Our theoretical model proposes two mechanisms to explain this heterogeneity in support for redistribution: "altruism" and "appreciation". We test our theoretical...

We propose and apply a new approach for analyzing the effects of fiscal policy using vector autoregressions. Unlike most of the previous literature this approach does not require that the contemporaneous reaction of some variables to fiscal policy shocks be set to zero or need additional...

We propose and apply a new approach for analyzing the effects of fiscal policy using vector autoregressions. Unlike most of the previous literature this approach does not require that the contemporaneous reaction of some variables to fiscal policy shocks be set to zero or need additional...

In both developed and developing countries, there are basically two main sources of economic instability: exogenous shocks and inappropriate policies. Exogenous shock (terms-of-trade shocks, natural disasters and capital flow reversals) can throw an economy into disequilibrium and therefore...

We estimate the short-term effects of fiscal consolidation on economic activity in 14countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. We examine contemporaneous policy documents to identify changes in fiscal policy motivated by a desire to reduce the budget deficit and not by responding to...

We investigate the effects of fiscal policy surprises for US data, using vector autoregressions. We overcome the difficulties that changes in fiscal policy may manifest themselves in variables other than fiscal variables first and that fiscal variables may respond "automatically" to business...

European Union member countries are currently exposed to negative implications of the economic and debt crisis. Questions associated with disputable implications of fiscal incentives seem to be contrary to the crucial need of the effective fiscal consolidation that is necessary to reduce...

Should fiscal consolidations be front-loaded or proceed at a more steady pace, and how does this affect growth? We make an attempt to address this question using a three-step methodology. First, we modify a standard regression of growth on consolidation size to allow speed to affect the...