(Translated by https://www.hiragana.jp/)
Uncertainty and Fiscal Cliffs
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/red/sed014/717.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Uncertainty and Fiscal Cliffs

Author

Listed:
  • Andrew Foerster

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City)

  • Troy Davig

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City)

Abstract

Fiscal uncertainty arises in many forms. Expiring temporary stimulus measures, projections of rapid debt growth, and oscillating political concerns over general levels of taxation are examples that all contribute to fiscal uncertainty. Motivated by anecdotal evidence associated with the US Fiscal-Cliff episode near the end of 2012, we empirically investigate the impact of economic policy uncertainty on investment and employment, especially with regard to the type of investment project. Increases in policy uncertainty lower investment and employment, with some investment dropping immediately and some more gradually, depending upon the ease of installation of types of capital. Based upon this empirical evidence, we then present a DSGE model of expiring tax provisions, and show that the model generates responses to fiscal uncertainty that match key features of the data. The framework captures a few unique elements of fiscal uncertainty. First, fiscal uncertainty is over the average tax rate, rather than a mean-preserving shock to the future tax rate. Second, households obtain information that tax rates may change at a particular date in the future, though whether tax rates do ultimately change is uncertain. As a result, information indicating that a policy change may occur in the future immediately sets in motion partial adjustments toward the new policy. The degree of adjustment households undertake depends on the probability attached to the outcome that actually does result in a change in fiscal policy. Unsuccessful reforms inject noise into the economy and lower the steady state level of the capital stock and output.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Foerster & Troy Davig, 2014. "Uncertainty and Fiscal Cliffs," 2014 Meeting Papers 717, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed014:717
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ellen R. McGrattan, 2012. "Capital Taxation During the U.S. Great Depression," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1515-1550.
    2. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2013. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1212-1247, June.
    3. Andrew Foerster & Juan F. Rubio‐Ramírez & Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2016. "Perturbation methods for Markov‐switching dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 7(2), pages 637-669, July.
    4. Congressional Budget Office, 2012. "Economic Effects of Reducing the Fiscal Restraint That Is Scheduled to Occur in 2013," Reports 43262, Congressional Budget Office.
    5. Nir Jaimovich & Sergio Rebelo, 2009. "Can News about the Future Drive the Business Cycle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1097-1118, September.
    6. Nicholas Bloom & Max Floetotto & Nir Jaimovich & Itay Saporta†Eksten & Stephen J. Terry, 2018. "Really Uncertain Business Cycles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(3), pages 1031-1065, May.
    7. Hollmayr, Josef & Matthes, Christian, 2015. "Learning about fiscal policy and the effects of policy uncertainty," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 142-162.
    8. Davig, Troy & Leeper, Eric M., 2011. "Monetary-fiscal policy interactions and fiscal stimulus," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 211-227, February.
    9. Davig, Troy, 2004. "Regime-switching debt and taxation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(4), pages 837-859, May.
    10. Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Generalizing the Taylor Principle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 607-635, June.
    11. Susanto Basu & Brent Bundick, 2017. "Uncertainty Shocks in a Model of Effective Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 937-958, May.
    12. Born, Benjamin & Peter, Alexandra & Pfeifer, Johannes, 2013. "Fiscal news and macroeconomic volatility," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 2582-2601.
    13. Kydland, Finn E. & Zarazaga, Carlos E.J.M., 2016. "Fiscal sentiment and the weak recovery from the Great Recession: A quantitative exploration," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 109-125.
    14. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Pablo Guerron-Quintana & Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez & Martin Uribe, 2011. "Risk Matters: The Real Effects of Volatility Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(6), pages 2530-2561, October.
    15. Hess Chung & Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Monetary and Fiscal Policy Switching," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(4), pages 809-842, June.
    16. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    17. Richter, Alexander W. & Throckmorton, Nathaniel A., 2015. "The consequences of an unknown debt target," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 76-96.
    18. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2014. "Dormant Shocks and Fiscal Virtue," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 1-46.
    19. Leduc, Sylvain & Liu, Zheng, 2016. "Uncertainty shocks are aggregate demand shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 20-35.
    20. Farmer, Roger E.A. & Waggoner, Daniel F. & Zha, Tao, 2011. "Minimal state variable solutions to Markov-switching rational expectations models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 2150-2166.
    21. Francesco Bianchi, 2012. "Evolving Monetary/Fiscal Policy Mix in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 167-172, May.
    22. Lawrence J. Christiano & Roberto Motto & Massimo Rostagno, 2014. "Risk Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(1), pages 27-65, January.
    23. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Huffman, Gregory W, 1988. "Investment, Capacity Utilization, and the Real Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(3), pages 402-417, June.
    24. Chris Woolston, 2014. "Rice," Nature, Nature, vol. 514(7524), pages 49-49, October.
    25. Congressional Budget Office, 2012. "Economic Effects of Reducing the Fiscal Restraint That Is Scheduled to Occur in 2013," Reports 43262, Congressional Budget Office.
    26. Christopher L. House & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2008. "Temporary Investment Tax Incentives: Theory with Evidence from Bonus Depreciation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 737-768, June.
    27. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1988. "Production, growth and business cycles : I. The basic neoclassical model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 195-232.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Erin Cottle Hunt & Frank N. Caliendo, 2022. "Social security and longevity risk: An analysis of couples," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 24(3), pages 547-579, June.
    2. Murray, James, 2014. "Fiscal Policy Uncertainty and Its Macroeconomic Consequences," MPRA Paper 57409, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Ivana Lolić & Petar Sorić & Marija Logarušić, 2022. "Economic Policy Uncertainty Index Meets Ensemble Learning," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 60(2), pages 401-437, August.
    4. Richter, Alexander W. & Throckmorton, Nathaniel A., 2015. "The consequences of an unknown debt target," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 76-96.
    5. Martha Elena Delgado-Rojas & Hernán Rincón-Castro, 2017. "Incertidumbre acerca de la política fiscal y ciclo económico," Borradores de Economia 1008, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    6. Fotiou, Alexandra & Shen, Wenyi & Yang, Shu-Chun S., 2020. "The fiscal state-dependent effects of capital income tax cuts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    7. Richter, Alexander W., 2015. "Finite lifetimes, long-term debt and the fiscal limit," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 180-203.
    8. Ansgar Belke & Pascal Goemans, 2021. "Uncertainty and nonlinear macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy in the US: a SEIVAR-based analysis," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 49(4), pages 623-646, May.
    9. Pascal Goemans, 2022. "Historical evidence for larger government spending multipliers in uncertain times than in slumps," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 60(3), pages 1164-1185, July.
    10. Pablo Garcia, 2021. "Learning, expectations and monetary policy," BCL working papers 153, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    11. Bi, Huixin & Shen, Wenyi & Yang, Shu-Chun S., 2016. "Debt-dependent effects of fiscal expansions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 142-157.
    12. Andrew T. Foerster, 2014. "The asymmetric effects of uncertainty," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q III, pages 5-26.
    13. Kim, Wongi, 2019. "Government spending policy uncertainty and economic activity: US time series evidence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-1.
    14. Higgins, C. Richard, 2023. "Risk and Uncertainty: The Role of Financial Frictions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    15. Hollmayr, Josef, 2018. "Fiscal regimes and the (non)stationarity of debt," Discussion Papers 11/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    16. Shoag, Daniel & Veuger, Stan, 2016. "Uncertainty and the geography of the great recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 84-93.
    17. Caliendo, Frank N. & Guo, Nick L. & Smith, Jason M., 2018. "Policy uncertainty and bank bailouts," Journal of Financial Markets, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 111-125.
    18. Ricco, Giovanni & Callegari, Giovanni & Cimadomo, Jacopo, 2014. "Signals from the Government: Policy Uncertainty and the Transmission of Fiscal Shocks," MPRA Paper 56136, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Sitthiyot, Thitithep, 2015. "Macroeconomic and Financial Management in an Uncertain World: What Can We Learn from Complexity Science?," MPRA Paper 73753, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 11 Dec 2015.
    20. Caliendo, Frank N. & Gorry, Aspen & Slavov, Sita, 2019. "The cost of uncertainty about the timing of Social Security reform," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 101-125.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Anna Belianska & Aurélien Eyquem & Céline Poilly, 2021. "The Transmission Channels of Government Spending Uncertainty," AMSE Working Papers 2115, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    2. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2017. "Escaping the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1030-1058, April.
    3. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Born, Benjamin & Elstner, Steffen & Grimme, Christian, 2019. "Time-varying business volatility and the price setting of firms," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 82-99.
    4. Caggiano, Giovanni & Castelnuovo, Efrem & Groshenny, Nicolas, 2014. "Uncertainty shocks and unemployment dynamics in U.S. recessions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 78-92.
    5. McClung, Nigel, 2020. "E-stability vis-à-vis determinacy in regime-switching models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    6. Josué Diwambuena & Jean-Paul K. Tsasa, 2021. "The Real Effects of Uncertainty Shocks: New Evidence from Linear and Nonlinear SVAR Models," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS87, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    7. Cesa-Bianchi, Ambrogio & Fernandez-Corugedo, Emilio, 2014. "Uncertainty in a model with credit frictions," Bank of England working papers 496, Bank of England.
    8. Xu, Shaofeng, 2017. "Volatility risk and economic welfare," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 17-33.
    9. Mykola Babiak & Roman Kozhan, 2021. "Growth Uncertainty, Rational Learning, and Option Prices," CERGE-EI Working Papers wp682, The Center for Economic Research and Graduate Education - Economics Institute, Prague.
    10. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Pablo Guerron-Quintana, 2020. "Uncertainty Shocks and Business Cycle Research," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 118-166, August.
    11. Nadav Ben Zeev, 2019. "Is There A Single Shock That Drives The Majority Of Business Cycle Fluctuations?," Working Papers 1906, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    12. Rangan Gupta & Chi Keung Marco Lau & Mark E. Wohar, 2019. "The impact of US uncertainty on the Euro area in good and bad times: evidence from a quantile structural vector autoregressive model," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 353-368, May.
    13. Stefano Fasani & Haroon Mumtaz & Lorenza Rossi, 2023. "Monetary Policy and Firm Dynamics," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 47, pages 278-296, January.
    14. Born, Benjamin & Pfeifer, Johannes, 2014. "Policy risk and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 68-85.
    15. Pierdzioch Christian & Gupta Rangan, 2020. "Uncertainty and Forecasts of U.S. Recessions," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 24(4), pages 1-20, September.
    16. Baruník, Jozef & Bevilacqua, Mattia & Faff, Robert, 2024. "Dynamic industry uncertainty networks and the business cycle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    17. Mehkari, M. Saif, 2016. "Uncertainty shocks in a model with mean-variance frontiers and endogenous technology choices," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 71-98.
    18. Kıvanç Karaman, K. & Yıldırım-Karaman, Seçil, 2019. "How does financial development alter the impact of uncertainty?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 33-42.
    19. Awijen, Haithem & Ben Zaied, Younes & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Sensoy, Ahmet, 2020. "Endogenous Financial Uncertainty and Macroeconomic Volatility: Evidence from the United States," MPRA Paper 101276, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jun 2020.
    20. Alessandri, Piergiorgio & Mumtaz, Haroon, 2019. "Financial regimes and uncertainty shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 31-46.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • F60 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - General
    • F62 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Macroeconomic Impacts

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:red:sed014:717. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christian Zimmermann (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sedddea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.