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Are Investment Incentives Blunted by Changes in Prices of Capital Goods?

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Author Info
Hassett, Kevin A
Hubbard, R Glenn

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Abstract

Recent research on business investment decisions suggests that real investment in plant and equipment is quite sensitive to changes in the user cost of capital, pointing to the possibility that long-run changes in tax policy may have a significant impact on an economy's capital stock. Indeed, many countries have at times adopted investment tax incentives to stimulate investment. The prevalence of investment incentives suggests that local policy-makers believe these are effective in increasing investment at a reasonable cost in terms of lost revenue. In this paper, we explore this issue by estimating the extent to which countries are price-takers in the world market for capital goods. We find that most countries--even the United States--face a highly elastic supply of capital goods, suggesting that the effect of investment incentives on the price of investment goods is small. Hence effects of long-run changes in investment tax policy are likely to materialize in real investment rather than simply being dissipated in changes in capital-goods prices. Copyright 1998 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd.

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Article provided by Blackwell Publishing in its journal International Finance.

Volume (Year): 1 (1998)
Issue (Month): 1 (October)
Pages: 103-25
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Handle: RePEc:bla:intfin:v:1:y:1998:i:1:p:103-25

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Officer, Lawrence H., 1986. "The law of one price cannot be rejected: Two tests based on the tradable/nontradable price ratio," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 159-182. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Kevin A. Hassett & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1998. "Tax Policy and Investment," NBER Working Papers 5683, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Jason G. Cummins & Kevin A. Hassett & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1994. "A Reconsideration of Investment Behavior Using Tax Reforms as Natural Experiments," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 25(1994-2), pages 1-74. [Downloadable!]
  4. Darrel Cohen & Kevin A. Hassett, 1997. "Inflation, taxes, and the durability of capital," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1997-53, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  5. Martin Feldstein & Charles Horioka, 1980. "Domestic Savings and International Capital Flows," NBER Working Papers 0310, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Cummins, Jason G. & Hassett, Kevin A. & Hubbard, R. Glenn, 1996. "Tax reforms and investment: A cross-country comparison," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1-2), pages 237-273, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Ricardo J. Caballero, 1997. "Aggregate Investment," NBER Working Papers 6264, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Kravis, Irving B. & Lipsey, Robert E., 1978. "Price behavior in the light of balance of payments theories," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 193-246, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Jason G. Cummins & Kevin A. Hassett & R. Glenn Hubbard, 1995. "A Reconsideration of Investment Behavior Using Tax Reforms as Natural Experiments," NBER Reprints 1946, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Auerbach, Alan J & Hassett, Kevin A & Oliner, Stephen D, 1994. "Reassessing the Social Returns to Equipment Investment," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(3), pages 789-802, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Jason G. Cummins & Trevor S. Harris & Kevin A. Hassett, 1994. "Accounting Standards, Information Flor, and Firm Investment Behavior," NBER Working Papers 4685, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Ricardo J. Caballero & Eduardo M. R. A. Engel & John C. Haltiwanger, 1995. "Plant-Level Adjustment and Aggregate Investment Dynamics," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 26(1995-2), pages 1-54. [Downloadable!]
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Karl Whelan, 1999. "Tax incentives, material inputs, and the supply curve for capital equipment," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 1999-21, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  2. Robert S. Chirinko & Steven M. Fazzari & Andrew P. Meyer, 2002. "That Elusive Elasticity: A Long-Panel Approach To Estimating The Price Sensitivity Of Business Capital," 10th International Conference on Panel Data, Berlin, July 5-6, 2002 B3-1, International Conferences on Panel Data. [Downloadable!]
  3. Philippe Aghion & Nicholas Bloom & Richard Blundell & Rachel Griffith & Peter Howitt, 2002. "Competition and innovation: an inverted U relationship," IFS Working Papers W02/04, Institute for Fiscal Studies. [Downloadable!]
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