We overcome the problems of data availability and investigate the fiscal multipliers in autonomous prefectures in China. We first estimate the long-run elasticity of gross regional production with respect to fiscal expenditure in autonomous prefectures, using autoregressive distributed lag...

As state governments face budget gaps of tens of billions of dollars in FY2009 and FY2010, this issue brief calculates the potential detrimental effects of state budget cuts on unemployment. While Congress considers a national economic recovery package, this issue brief highlights the fact that...

We investigate the effects of urban and rural populations and area sizes on the expenditures of the prefecture-level local government. We found the following three results. The first relates to the expenditure for urban populations. At around 220,000 people, per capita local government...

Decrease in the future number of students due to the low birth rate could affect public educational expenditures in Japan? Is there any regional difference? This paper simulates the future amount of local public primary, junior high, and high school expenditures in each Japanese prefecture. More...

This note reexamines the growth effects of commodity taxation and a manufacturing subsidy. By incorporating endogenous labor supply into a variety expansion model following Grossman and Helpman (1991), we derive new results. First, if households consider leisure to be important, an increase in...

With Spain’s official unemployment rate at 26 percent, and the economy projected to contract by 1.3 percent this year, it is difficult to make the case for continued austerity that could push a barely growing economy back into recession. Yet the government is committed to further fiscal...

This study extends the multi-country, politico-economic model of fiscal policy developed by Song, Storesletten, and Zilibotti (2012) to incorporate wage inequality within each country. In this extended framework, we present conflict within and across generations over fiscal policy and show that...

This paper studies investment decisions by economic agents in cases where the tax rate is decided through voting. It will be shown that, in some cases, only a Pareto-dominated tax policy on the wrong side of the Laffer curve is supported under rational expectations. Thus, the governments may...

This paper considers the case for and against 'the treasury view' - the idea that in a downturn, government spending has no effect on economic activity or unemployment. The report covers three areas: the evidence for expansionary fiscal contraction – the idea that somehow cutting budget...

This study presents an overlapping-generations model featuring endogenous growth, collective wage-bargaining, and probabilistic voting over fiscal policy. We charac- terize a Markov-perfect political equilibrium of the voting game within and across generations and show the following results....