期刊-NBER美国国民经济研究局-Fall1986_48页_894kb

NBER Reporter Summary - Fall 1986

Core Content

The Fall 1986 issue of the NBER Reporter highlights several key research projects and summaries related to state and local government finance, financial factors and the real economy, long-term asset prices, and economic outlook. The document provides insights into how financial systems influence macroeconomic outcomes, how government revenue sources are evolving, and the implications of policy decisions on public finances and economic behavior.

Main Research Projects

1. State and Local Government Finance

• Harvey S. Rosen leads a project examining the behavior of state and local governments, their interactions with each other and the federal government, and their impact on the national economy.
• Charles T. Clotfelter studies the incidence of lotteries as a revenue source, analyzing factors such as income distribution, age, prize structure, advertising, competition, and the existence of other gambling games.
• Daniel R. Feenberg and Harvey S. Rosen analyze state personal income and sales taxes, focusing on how these taxes are structured and their distributional effects, especially in relation to federal tax deductibility.
• Robert P. Inman investigates how local officials choose between debt and taxes to fund current expenditures, using data from 41 major U.S. cities between 1960 and 1980.
• Michael J. Boskin produces new estimates of state and local tangible capital and net investment, comparing trends with the private and federal sectors.
• Martin Feldstein and Gilbert Metcalf examine the effect of federal tax deductibility on state and local taxes and spending, suggesting that deductibility can significantly influence the level and composition of government spending.
• Charles F. Manski studies the demand for teachers in local school districts, considering local demographics, economic conditions, and institutional structures.
• Thomas Romer looks at the influence of political structures on educational spending, particularly the role of the referendum process in New York school districts.
• Katharine L. Bradbury and Helen Ladd assess the viability of the property tax as a revenue source, noting shifts in employment from manufacturing to services and tax limitation measures.

Key Research Summaries

Financial Factors and the Real Economy - Ben S. Bernanke

• Focuses on the role of financial factors in macroeconomic fluctuations.
• Examines the Great Depression as a case study, highlighting the collapse of the financial system, bank failures, and the resulting credit allocation problems.
• Proposes a dynamic macroeconomic model that incorporates asymmetric information and financial intermediation.
• Finds that collateral and creditworthiness of borrowers are crucial in financial intermediation.
• Develops a debt deflation model, showing how unexpected price declines reduce collateral and increase agency costs, leading to reduced capital formation and output.
• Suggests that financial shocks can initiate business cycles, and that nonmonetary shocks were nearly as important as monetary shocks in postwar cycles.
• Emphasizes the need for further research on liquidity and solvency in firms and the implications for monetary policy and banking regulation.

What Moves Long-Term Asset Prices? - John Y. Campbell

• Explores the factors influencing long-term asset prices, including stock prices, bond yields, and exchange rates.
• Proposes present-value models where asset prices reflect rational expectations of future income.
• Tests these models using vector autoregressions and finds that excess returns are not highly predictable.
• Notes that time-varying risk premiums may explain some movements in asset prices.
• Finds mixed results for the permanent income hypothesis, with real saving not fully aligning with expected income declines.
• Concludes that while expected future dividends explain much of stock price variation, discount rate changes and other factors also play a role.

Conferences and Events

• December Conference in Cambridge: Topics include state and local budgeting, public education, and the evaluation of lotteries.
• April 1987 Conference: Focuses on fiscal federalism, discussing the federal tax code, grants, and infrastructure responsibility.

NBER Information

• The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) is a private, nonprofit research organization founded in 1920.
• The Board of Directors includes notable economists and scholars from various institutions.
• The NBER Reporter is not copyrighted and can be freely reproduced with proper attribution.
• TAXSIM, the federal tax simulation model, is used to compare state tax systems and analyze the effects of tax deductibility.

Conclusion

The document emphasizes the importance of financial factors in shaping macroeconomic outcomes and the evolving role of state and local government finance. It also underscores the need for continued research into asset price dynamics, fiscal policy, and institutional structures in public finance.