Collaborative Research: The Macroeconomics Effects of Tax Cuts: New Estimates Derived from a Narrative Approach

对于税收变化对宏观经济影响的几乎每一个方面，经济学家和政界人士都存在巨大分歧。这种分歧的一个核心原因是，很难衡量税收变化对宏观经济的影响。税收变化的原因有很多：一些原因是因为预计经济将朝着某个方向发展，或者是因为支出正在发生变化；另一些原因是哲学或政治原因。使用税收对经济状况或可能影响经济增长的发展做出反应的事件来估计税收变化的影响，将导致偏颇或不正确的结果。这个项目将利用税收变化背后的大量叙事记录来确定自1946年《就业法》通过以来美国所有重大税收变化的主要动机。总统经济报告、预算、总统演讲、国会辩论记录和其他来源将被用来构建一份关于重大税收变化、其规模和性质以及它们的动机的记录。这一记录将被用来区分那些旨在抵消政策制定者认为正在推动经济增长率高于或低于正常水平的因素的变化，以及出于其他原因进行的变化。这些信息将被用于分析税收变化的宏观经济影响。研究人员将考察税收变化后产出增长的行为，以提供税收变化对短期经济增长影响的规模和时机的证据。这项工作将检验税收变化的特征是否会影响估计的影响。这项研究还将考察消费和库存等产出组成部分的反应，以更好地了解税收变化对总活动的传导机制。此外，为了确定未能解释税收改革的动机是否会导致重要的偏差，研究结果将与所有税收改革的结果进行比较，而不仅仅是那些没有采取措施让产出增长恢复正常的结果。该项目还将通过检查税收变化对投资、储蓄、利率和通胀的影响，为税收变化的长期影响提供证据。例如，研究税收变化对投资的影响将提供证据，证明它们可能通过一个渠道影响较长期的增长。此外，这项研究将通过调查税收变化后没有采取措施使产出增长恢复正常的支出行为，来检验减税抑制政府支出的假设。税收总水平的选择是一个核心的公共政策问题。通过提供关于税收变化影响的新证据，该项目有可能为关于制定总体税收的短期和长期考虑的辩论提供宝贵的意见。就短期而言，关于税收变化的产出效应的规模和时机的证据，显然对于利用税收变化来实现经济的短期稳定至关重要。考虑到经济突然遭受重大冲击(如股市崩盘)的风险，以及对某些情况下货币政策效力的担忧(如2003-2004年极低利率的环境)，利用财政政策稳定经济的可能性尤其紧迫。对于长期问题来说，有关税收变化影响的证据可能更加重要。认为减税有助于减少未来政府支出的假设，往往是减税的关键动机。因此，关于这一效应强度的证据应该是思考税收时的一个重要考虑因素。更根本的是，税收变化对储蓄和增长的长期影响的证据，应该是选择总体税收水平的核心问题。

There is enormous disagreement among both economists and politicians about almost every aspect of the impact of changes in taxes on the macroeconomy. A central reason for this disagreement is that it is very hard to measure the macroeconomic effects of tax changes. Tax changes occur for many reasons: some occur because the economy is predicted to move in some direction or because spending is changing; others occur for philosophical or political reasons. Estimating the effects of tax changes using episodes where taxes are responding to the state of the economy or to developments likely to affect economic growth will lead to biased or incorrect results. This project will use the vast narrative record of the arguments underlying tax changes to determine the primary motivation for all major tax changes in the United States since the passage of the Employment Act of 1946. The Economic Reports of the President, the Budgets, presidential speeches, records of congressional debates, and other sources will be used to construct a record of major tax changes, their size and nature, and their motivation. This record will be used to separate the changes into ones intended to offset factors that policymakers believed were acting to push the economy's growth rate above or below its normal level and ones undertaken for other reasons.This information will be used to analyze the macroeconomic effects of tax changes. The behavior of output growth following tax changes not undertaken to return growth to normal will be examined to provide evidence about the size and timing of the effects of tax changes on short-run economic growth. The work will test whether the characteristics of the tax changes affect the estimated impact. The research will also examine the response of the components of output, such as consumption and inventories, to gain a better understanding of the transmission mechanism of tax changes to aggregate activity. In addition, to determine whether failing to account for the motivations for tax changes leads to important biases, the results will be compared with ones obtained using all tax changes rather than just those not taken to return output growth to normal. The project will also provide evidence about the long-run effects of tax changes by examining their impact on investment, saving, interest rates, and inflation. For example, studying the effects of tax changes on investment will provide evidence about one channel through which they could influence growth over the longer term. Furthermore, the research will test the hypothesis that tax cuts restrain government spending by investigating the behavior of spending following tax changes not taken to return output growth to normal.Broader Impact. The choice of the overall level of taxes is a central public policy issue. By providing new evidence about the effects of tax changes, the project has the potential to provide valuable input into debates about both short-run and long-run considerations in the setting of overall taxes. With regard to the short run, evidence about the size and timing of the output effects of tax changes is clearly essential for the use of tax changes for short-run stabilization of the economy. The possibility of using fiscal policy for stabilization is particularly pressing in view of the risks of sudden major shocks to the economy (such as a stock market crash) and concern about the efficacy of monetary policy in some cases (such as the environment of very low interest rates in 2003-2004). Evidence about the effects of tax changes is probably even more important for long-run issues. The hypothesis that reductions in taxes serve to reduce future government spending is often a key motive for tax cuts. Thus evidence about the strength of this effect should be an important consideration in thinking about taxes. Even more fundamentally, evidence about the long-run impact of tax changes on saving and growth should be a central issue in the choice of the overall level of taxes.