2014年-IMF国际货币组织全球_A_Fiscal_Job__An_Analysis_of_Fiscal_Policy_and_the_Labor_Market_27页_576kb

报告摘要

A Fiscal Job? Summary

Core Content

This working paper analyzes the relationship between fiscal policy and the labor market, focusing on how fiscal policy affects employment gaps beyond its traditional impact through the output multiplier. The study uses Okun's Law as a framework to explore this relationship across 34 OECD countries from 1975 to 2012.

Main Findings

Expenditure Side

Discretionary current expenditure has a robust positive impact on employment gaps.
Capital expenditure has no significant impact on employment gaps in the short run, suggesting that it does not affect employment beyond the impact of aggregate demand.
The largest effect is observed from spending on goods and services, followed by wage bill, social benefits, and subsidies.
Direct impact of fiscal policy on employment is small but significant, indicating that fiscal policy can influence labor market outcomes independently of output changes.
Discretionary spending can amplify the impact of the output gap on employment gaps, especially during positive output gaps.

Revenue Side

Lower corporate income tax (CIT) and lower social security contributions (SSC) rates are associated with improved employment outcomes.
Okun's coefficient is stable under most fiscal policy changes, but subsidies and social security contributions can alter the relationship between output and employment during positive output gaps.
Labor taxes (personal income tax and social security contributions) negatively affect employment by reducing both labor supply and demand.
Corporate taxes reduce investment and production, and can lower labor supply if passed on to workers in the form of reduced wages.
Consumption taxes (e.g., VAT, excises) increase the cost of consumption goods, which may reduce real wages and lower labor supply.
A shift from labor to consumption taxes could boost labor demand, as it lowers non-wage labor costs.
The long-term effects of tax shifts depend on how much the tax burden is shifted from labor income to other forms of income.
Model simulations and empirical studies suggest that tax shifts can have positive long-term effects on growth and employment.

Key Insights

Okun's Law is a key empirical tool for forecasting employment dynamics, but its stability is still debated, especially in the context of the global financial crisis.
The interaction between fiscal policy and output gaps is important for understanding the employment multiplier.
Fiscal policy can influence the structure of the labor market directly, through mechanisms such as job matching, training, and labor market flexibility.
Monetary policy also plays a role, with a positive impact on employment when interest rates are lower, although the magnitude is small.
Labor market regulations and institutional variables (e.g., minimum wage, union concentration) are not significant in most specifications, suggesting limited influence on employment outcomes.

Methodology

The study uses a panel data approach and applies Okun's Law to examine the short-term relationship between employment and output gaps.
A regression model is used to estimate the direct and conditional impacts of fiscal policy on employment gaps, including the interaction term between fiscal policy and the output gap.
The within fixed effect estimator is employed to control for idiosyncratic factors and omitted variable bias.
Bootstrap techniques and correction for autocorrelation and heteroskedasticity are used to ensure robust results.

Discretionary Fiscal Policy

Discretionary fiscal policy is identified by subtracting automatic stabilizers from total public expenditure.
A fiscal rule is estimated for each country, with the fiscal balance expressed as a function of lagged fiscal balance, inflation, output gap, debt, and time trend.
The residual from this rule is used as a proxy for discretionary fiscal policy.
Lags are included to address endogeneity in non-spending variables, and panel fixed effects are used to control for simultaneous bias.

Data Sources

Employment data comes from the OECD database.
Real GDP and public spending items are sourced from the IMF World Economic Outlook (WEO) database.
Tax rates are from Iltzeski's (2011) database, covering 15 countries from 1981 to 2008.
Monetary policy rates are from the IMF-International Finance Statistics (IFS) database.
Labor market regulation index and its components (minimum wage, union concentration, and membership) are from the World Economic Freedom dataset (WEF).
Employment protection legislation data is from the OECD.

Conclusion

The study confirms that fiscal policy can influence employment directly, beyond the output channel.
Discretionary current expenditure is the most effective in improving employment outcomes.
Corporate income taxes and social security contributions are important instruments for shaping labor market dynamics.
The stability of Okun's coefficient is generally supported, but subsidies and social security contributions can amplify or reduce the impact of output changes on employment.
Fiscal interventions to reduce employment gaps are less effective than policies aimed at stimulating aggregate demand.

Tables and Figures

Table 1 shows the baseline Okun's Law with a coefficient of 0.24.
Table 2 illustrates the impact of discretionary expenditure on employment gaps, with a positive and significant effect from discretionary primary current expenditure.
Table 3 and Table 4 show the interaction effects of fiscal policy instruments with the output gap.
Table 5 and Table 6 present the results for unemployment gaps, indicating that similar dynamics drive both employment and unemployment outcomes.
Table 7 provides Okun's Law results for unemployment gaps.
Table 8 and Table 9 show the impact of tax rates on unemployment gaps.
Figure 1 and Figure 2 depict unemployment rates and employment rate differences across OECD countries.