Matt Nolan

Tax cuts, the minimum wage, and incidence

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The Standard has been stating that tax cuts should be “fairer”. Now in principle I have no problem with things being “fairer” – however, defining what is fair very is subjective, and what the Standard sees as fair and what I see as fair might be different.

Still, both the Standard and No Right Turn go on to quantify what they feel is an injustice – the fact that a greater proportion of the tax cut will go to the wealthy. However, for what they are saying to be true, the wage everyone is paid following a tax cut must not change (or must change by the same lump sum) regardless of their current income – yet this is not the case.

Many moons ago we discussed tax incidence – I think it is time to run with this again, taking for granted some of the assumptions about the labour market that the Standard has provided us with over time.

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Matt Nolan

Real income, poverty, and a tiered CPI

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According to a recent book by Christian Broda and David E. Weinstein (Prices, Poverty, and Inequality: Why Americans are Better Off Than You Think) (ht Marginal Revolution) growth in income inequality was less pronounced in the US because of changes to the quality and cost of goods that “poor” people purchased.

This indicates to me that a tiered consumer price index could be a useful thing.  Currently the household economic survey (HES) provides an annual tiered income measure (where we see the average income of different income deciles).  However, this nominal measure is not particularly useful if the change in prices experienced by different groups are very diverse.

As a result, a similarly tiered CPI measure (so a CPI for each income decile) would actually give us a much better way to figure out change in “real income” and thereby a fairer measure of the distribution of real income – which is something we care about.

Surely the HES has a measure of purchases by different income groups.  As the CPI is broken down into different products it should be possible to take these weights and come up with a loose set of indicies that represent the price inflation faced by different income declines shouldn’t it?

Matt Nolan

The rebirth of “Keynes”: A good or a bad thing?

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Over at Robert Reich’s blog, there is a discussion stating that now is the time for rising government spending in the US based on the “fact” that the government is the “spender of last resort” and that the economy has plenty of spare “capacity” (ht Mark Thoma at Economists View).

We have discussed fiscal policy before, and will discuss it again tomorrow. Now, I agree with chunks of this logic, but I feel that there is one gapping hole – the behaviour of prices!

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goonix

Metering and the market for water

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The DomPost contained an article on the potential for metering Wellington’s water supply. The question is asked: should Wellingtonians pay for their water? This issue is a hot topic, having been discussed at Kiwiblog, Infometrics and TVHE earlier this year.

Historically, water has been provided for by the various Wellington councils out of rates. Water is not currently metered, which implies that regardless of how much water each household takes, their rates do not vary. This arrangement has led many to believe water is in some way ‘free’, as they are not forced to pay for their specific usage and the cost is embodied in rates which cover many council services across many households. With water use of 400 litres per person per day in Wellington, relative to the national average of 160 litres, it appears water users here are not internalising the cost of their water usage.

Current arrangements do not allow for the pricing of scarcity. Read more

Will Taylor

Nats to bail out big business?

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I was slightly concerned when I saw the headline on stuff this morning “Nats eye bailout of big business”

If the government is saying ex ante that they will bail out big businesses I would be concerned as this has the potential to cause a moral hazard problem. This is where firms know they will get bailed out and thus make riskier decisions. The actual quotes from Bill English don’t appear the be as explicit as I originally thought they might be

“You’re in an environment when almost anything any government could contemplate doing is getting done somewhere in the world,” he said.

“There is a small chance that events that have transpired elsewhere could transpire here. You can’t ignore that and so we need to give some thought to the extreme event.”

Are quotes like this enough to give the big companies in NZ enough comfort that they will bailed out? Only time will tell….

Matt Nolan

How does a fiscal boost work?

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This is an important question, given that we are in a situation where governments around the world are looking to loosen fiscal policy. Tyler Cowen succinctly lists the four (five) ways that fiscal policy influences the economic situation – note that this ignores issues of the quality or distribution of spending. These are:

  1. Generate some investments which are worthwhile on their own terms,
  2. If the broader monetary aggregates are falling, because of either a credit crunch or a liquidity trap, a fiscal boost can keep aggregate demand from deteriorating,
  3. fiscal boost can provide a beneficial “sunspot” in a multiple equilibrium model, thereby moving everyone to the higher output equilibrium,
  4. If spending needs to fall, a fiscal boost can postpone this fall,
  5. The economy needs a boost to aggregate demand and since monetary policy isn’t working any more, fiscal policy has to step in (which he notes requires 2 and 4 anyway).

So what do I have to add – only a little bit.

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