VOX, CEPR’s Policy Portal

Spending cuts may be as recessionary as revenue increases

Roel Beetsma, Oana Furtuna, Massimo Giuliodori, 05 September 2017

Research has shown that planned fiscal consolidations have been less recessionary when carried out through public spending cuts rather than through increases in government revenues. This column argues that this may be at least partly due to differences in follow-up for the two consolidation strategies. Better follow-up of announced spending contractions may result in negative Keynesian responses similar to those that follow announced revenue increases, and so they may not necessarily provide a 'cheaper' route to budgetary consolidation than revenue increases.

Secular stagnation versus technological shock scenarios

Antonin Bergeaud, Gilbert Cette, Rémy Lecat, 04 September 2017

Over the 20th century, GDP growth was mainly driven by total factor productivity growth. Since the mid-2000s, however, productivity growth has been in decline. This column explores the history and future of growth focusing on four developed economies: the US, the Eurozone, the UK, and Japan. Simulated scenarios for the 21st century show a wide range of potential growth outcomes, dependent on whether total factor productivity growth stays indefinitely low, and whether the digital economy delivers a new productivity growth wave.

Impact of the housing market on wage inequality in Spain

Stéphane Bonhomme, Laura Hospido, 04 September 2017

The link between the rise in unemployment and the housing market in the US during the Great Recession is well documented. This column shows that in the case of Spain, the rise and fall in demand for construction workers following developments within the housing market had a big impact earnings inequality as well as employment. While there has been no apparent trend in the recent evolution of earnings inequality in Spain, countercyclical fluctuations have been substantial, with the construction sector playing a key role in this.

The integration of economic history into economics

Robert Margo, 03 September 2017

Specialist economic historians in the US today behave, and are rewarded, in similar ways to other economists. Mainstream economists also publish articles on economic history. This column argues that this is the culmination of a process of integration of history and econometrics that started with the cliometrics revolution in the 1950s. If this continues however, there is a risk that the demand for economic historians with the skills to ‘get the history right’ might dry up.

A welfarist role for non-welfarist rules

Matthew Weinzierl, 03 September 2017

Under a welfarist approach, tax policy is judged on its implications for the well-being of those in the society to which it applies. An implicit vulnerability of this approach is that judgements are based on necessarily incomplete cost and benefit calculations. This column investigates people’s preferences for welfarist and non-welfarist approaches by exploring responses to envy. A narrow majority of respondents reject a redistribution of resources that raises overall welfare by assuaging envy. These respondents seem to be using non-welfarist principles to encode concerns about indirect policy consequences.