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Fiscal Foresight: Analytics and Econometrics

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Author Info
Eric M. Leeper
Todd B. Walker
Shu-Chun Susan Yang

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Abstract

Fiscal foresight---the phenomenon that legislative and implementation lags ensure that private agents receive clear signals about the tax rates they face in the future---is intrinsic to the tax policy process. This paper develops an analytical framework to study the econometric implications of fiscal foresight. Simple theoretical examples show that foresight produces equilibrium time series with a non-invertible moving average component, which misaligns the agents' and the econometrician's information sets in estimated VARs. Economically meaningful shocks to taxes, therefore, cannot be extracted from statistical innovations in conventional ways. Econometric analyses that fail to align agents' and the econometrician's information sets can produce distorted inferences about the effects of tax policies. Because non-invertibility arises as a natural outgrowth of the fact that agents' optimal decisions discount future tax obligations, it is likely to be endemic to the study of fiscal policy. In light of the implications of the analytical framework, we evaluate two existing empirical approaches to quantifying the impacts of fiscal foresight. The paper also offers a formal interpretation of the narrative approach to identifying fiscal policy.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14028.

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Date of creation: May 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14028

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents

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  1. Lucia Alessi & Matteo Barigozzi & Marco Capasso, 2008. "A review of nonfundamentalness and identification in structural VAR models," Working Paper Series 922, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Carlo Favero & Francesco Giavazzi, 2009. "How large are the effects of tax changes?," NBER Working Papers 15303, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Lanne, Markku & Saikkonen, Pentti, 2009. "Noncausal vector autoregression," Research Discussion Papers 18/2009, Bank of Finland. [Downloadable!]
  4. Eric M. Leeper, 2009. "Anchoring Fiscal Expectations," NBER Working Papers 15269, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. Ruth Judson & Elizabeth Klee, 2009. "Whither the liquidity effect: the impact of Federal Reserve Open Market Operations in recent years," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2009-25, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  6. Pereira, Manuel C, 2009. "A new measure of fiscal shocks based on budget forecasts and its implications," MPRA Paper 17475, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  7. Michael T. Owyang & Sarah Zubairy, 2009. "Who benefits from increased government spending? a state-level analysis," Working Papers 2009-006, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
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