Knowledge that Transforms

Recent estimates of the potential growth effects of tax reform vary wildly, ranging from zero to eight percentage points. Using an endogenous growth model, the authors assess which model features and parameter values are important for determining the quantitative impact of tax reform. The quantitative estimates in several recent papers are compared with each other and with some of the evidence from U.S. experience. The authors find that Robert Lucas's conclusion, that tax reform would have little or no impact on the U.S. growth rate, is theoretically robust and consistent with the evidence.

We develop an analytically tractable two-country model that marries a full account of global macroeconomic dynamics to a supply framework based on monopolistic competition and sticky nominal prices. The model offers simple and intuitive predictions about exchange rates and current accounts that sometimes differ sharply from those of either modern flexible-price intertemporal models or traditional sticky-price Keynesian models. Our analysis leads to a novel perspective on the international welfare spillovers due to monetary and fiscal policies.

This paper develops a model of small business failure and sale that is motivated by recent evidence concerning how the failure and sale of small businesses vary with the age of the business and the tenure of the manager. This evidence motivates two key features of the model: a match between the manager and the business, and characteristics of businesses that survive beyond the current match. The parameters of the model are estimated, and the properties of this parametric model are studied. This analysis results in a simple characterization of the workings of the small business sector.

A market in which the owner of a durable good, X, contracts with an expert for diagnostic and treatment services is studied. Good X may be in one of three states: "health," "disease," or "failure." Only experts can determine whether X is healthy or diseased and perform treatment. The owner cannot tell whether recommended treatment is really needed. This creates an information-based demand for health insurance by risk-neutral consumers. Imperfections in the market for spot insurance may give rise to free diagnostic checks, strategic procrastination, and long-term health maintenance agreements.

This paper uses a Treasury Department panel of more than 4,000 taxpayers to estimate the sensitivity of taxable income to changes in tax rates based on a comparison of the tax returns of the same individual taxpayers before and after the 1986 tax reform. The analysis emphasizes that the response of taxable income involves much more than a change in the traditional measures of labor supply. The evidence shows an elasticity of taxable income with respect to the marginal net-of-tax rate that is at least one and that could be substantially higher. The implications for recent tax rate changes are discussed.

Whether governments clash in trade disputes or negotiate over trade agreements, their actions in the international arena reflect political conditions back home. Previous studies of cooperative and noncooperative trade relations have focused on governments that are immune from political pressures and that act as benevolent servants of the public interest. Here we take a first step toward introducing domestic politics into the analysis of international economic relations. We study the interactions between national leaders who are concerned both with providing a high standard of living to the general electorate and collecting campaign contributions from special interest groups. The analysis reveals the determinants of the structure of protection in a noncooperative trade war and in a cooperative trade agreement.

"Income smoothing" is the process of manipulating the time profile of earnings or earnings reports to make the reported income stream less variable. This paper builds a theory of income smoothing based on the managers' concern about keeping their position or avoiding interference, and on the idea that current performance receives more weight than past performance when one is assessing the future. When investment is added to the model, so that income reports and dividends can be set independently, we find that both dividends and income reports may be smoothed and that dividends may convey information not present in the income report.