IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/1627.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Tax-Based Test for Nominal Rigidities

Author

Listed:
  • James M. Poterba
  • Julio J. Rotemberg
  • Lawrence H. Summers

Abstract

In classical macroeconomic models with flexible wages and prices,whether a tax is levied on producers or consumers does not affect its incidence. However, if wages or prices are rigid in the short run, as they are in Keynesian macroeconomic models, then shifting a tax from one side ofthe market to the other may have real effects. Tax changes therefore provide potential tests for the presence of nominal rigidities. This paper examines the price and output effects of revenue-neutral shifts between direct and indirect taxation. The results, based on post-war data from both Great Britain and the United States, reject the view that wages and prices are completely flexible in the short run.

Suggested Citation

  • James M. Poterba & Julio J. Rotemberg & Lawrence H. Summers, 1985. "A Tax-Based Test for Nominal Rigidities," NBER Working Papers 1627, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1627
    Note: EFG PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w1627.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Solow, Robert M, 1980. "On Theories of Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(1), pages 1-11, March.
    2. Rotemberg, Julio J, 1984. "A Monetary Equilibrium Model with Transactions Costs," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(1), pages 40-58, February.
    3. Rotemberg, Julio J., 1983. "Monetary policy and costs of price adjustment," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 267-288, February.
    4. J. D. Sargan, 1980. "The Consumer Price Equation in the Post War British Economy: An Exercise in Equation Specification Testing," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 47(1), pages 113-135.
    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. Lipińska, Anna & von Thadden, Leopold, 2019. "On The Effectiveness Of Fiscal Devaluations In A Monetary Union," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(8), pages 3424-3456, December.
    2. Buiter, Willem H., 2017. "Exchange rate implications of Border Tax Adjustment neutrality," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 11, pages 1-41.
    3. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 1999. "Error Bands for Impulse Responses," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 67(5), pages 1113-1156, September.
    4. Taylor, John B., 1999. "Staggered price and wage setting in macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 1009-1050, Elsevier.
    5. Wolf, Martin, 2020. "Pecuniary externalities in economies with downward wage rigidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 219-235.
    6. Blinder, Alan S, 1988. "The Challenge of High Unemployment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 1-15, May.
    7. Kashif Munir & Maryam Sultan, 2018. "Are some taxes better for growth in Pakistan? A time series analysis," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 45(10), pages 1439-1452, August.
    8. Christopher Erceg & Andrea Prestipino & Andrea Raffo, 2018. "The Macroeconomic Effect of Trade Policy," 2018 Meeting Papers 221, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    9. Daniel R. Feenberg & Andrew W. Mitrusi & James M. Poterba, 1997. "Distributional Effects of Adopting a National Retail Sales Tax," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 11, pages 49-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Wolf, Martin, 2020. "Pecuniary externalities in economies with downward wage rigidity," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 219-235.
    11. Besley, Timothy J. & Rosen, Harvey S., 1999. "Sales Taxes and Prices: An Empirical Analysis," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 52(2), pages 157-178, June.
    12. Myers, Robert J. & Oehmke, James F., 1987. "Instability and Risk as Rationales for Government Intervention in Agriculture," Staff Paper Series 200938, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    13. Yongzheng Liu & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez, 2015. "Growth–Inequality Tradeoff in the Design of Tax Structure: Evidence from a Large Panel of Countries," Pacific Economic Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(2), pages 323-345, May.
    14. James M. Poterba, 1993. "Global Warming Policy: A Public Finance Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(4), pages 47-63, Fall.
    15. Kleven, Henrik Jacobsen & Kreiner, Claus Thustrup, 2003. "The role of taxes as automatic destabilizers in New Keynesian economics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(5-6), pages 1123-1136, May.
    16. Sun, Rongrong, 2013. "Does monetary policy matter in China? A narrative approach," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 56-74.
    17. Henry, Jerome & Hernandez de Cos, Pablo & Momigliano, Sandro, 2008. "The impact of government budgets on prices: Evidence from macroeconometric models," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 123-143.
    18. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Violeta Vulovic & Yongzheng Liu, 2011. "Direct versus Indirect Taxation: Trends, Theory, and Economic Significance," Chapters, in: Emilio Albi & Jorge Martinez-Vazquez (ed.), The Elgar Guide to Tax Systems, chapter 2, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. Rotemberg, Julio J & Woodford, Michael, 1996. "Imperfect Competition and the Effects of Energy Price Increases on Economic Activity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(4), pages 550-577, November.
    20. Alvin Ó Murchú, 2002. "Tax Policy and OECD Unemployment," Working Papers 200231, School of Economics, University College Dublin.
    21. Gurbachan Singh, 2014. "Overcoming Zero Lower Bound on Interest Rate without any Inflation or Inflationary Expectations," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 3(1), pages 1-38, June.
    22. Facundo Alvaredo & Thomas Breda & Barra Roantree & Emmanuel Saez, 2017. "Contribution Ceilings and the Incidence of Payroll Taxes," De Economist, Springer, vol. 165(2), pages 129-140, June.
    23. Shah, Anwar, 1988. "Public infrastructure and private sector profitability and productivity in Mexico," Policy Research Working Paper Series 100, The World Bank.
    24. Stoyan Tanchev, 2019. "Tax structure and economic growth: empirical evidence from Bulgaria," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 5, pages 24-41,42-58.
    25. James M. Poterba, 1991. "Tax Policy to Combat Global Warming: On Designing a Carbon Tax," NBER Working Papers 3649, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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. Filippo Occhino, 2001. "Monetary Policy Shocks in an Economy with Segmented Markets," Departmental Working Papers 200108, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    2. Menzio, Guido & Shi, Shouyong & Sun, Hongfei, 2013. "A monetary theory with non-degenerate distributions," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(6), pages 2266-2312.
    3. Rotemberg, Julio J & Driscoll, John C & Poterba, James M, 1995. "Money, Output, and Prices: Evidence from a New Monetary Aggregate," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(1), pages 67-83, January.
    4. John Haltiwanger & Mark Plant, 1984. "How Should We Measure Slackness in the Labor Market?," UCLA Economics Working Papers 343, UCLA Department of Economics.
    5. Fernando Alvarez & Andrew Atkeson & Patrick J. Kehoe, 2002. "Money, Interest Rates, and Exchange Rates with Endogenously Segmented Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(1), pages 73-112, February.
    6. Sabrina T. Howell & J. David Brown, 2020. "Do Cash Windfalls Affect Wages? Evidence from R&D Grants to Small Firms," Working Papers 20-06, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    7. Semyon Malamud & Andreas Schrimpf, 2016. "Intermediation Markups and Monetary Policy Passthrough," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 16-75, Swiss Finance Institute.
    8. Lucas, Deborah, 1999. "Price and interest rate dynamics induced by multiperiod contracts," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 315-338.
    9. Pavel Ryska & Jan Prùša, 2011. "Efficiency Wages in Heterogenous Labour Markets," Working Papers IES 2011/28, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Aug 2011.
    10. Peng, Yulei & Zervou, Anastasia, 2022. "Monetary policy rules and the equity premium in a segmented markets model," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    11. Aiyagari, S. Rao & Braun, R. Anton, 1998. "Some models to guide monetary policymakers," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 1-42, June.
    12. Adrien Auclert, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Redistribution Channel," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(6), pages 2333-2367, June.
    13. Hristov, Nikolay & Hülsewig, Oliver, 2017. "Unexpected loan losses and bank capital in an estimated DSGE model of the euro area," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 54(PB), pages 161-186.
    14. Ho Wai-Ming, 2020. "Liquidity constraints, international trade, and optimal monetary policy," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(2), pages 1-29, June.
    15. Benati, Luca & Lucas, Robert E. & Nicolini, Juan Pablo & Weber, Warren, 2021. "International evidence on long-run money demand," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 43-63.
    16. Browne, Frank & Cronin, David, 2006. "A Segmented Markets Model of Inflation," Research Technical Papers 17/RT/06, Central Bank of Ireland.
    17. James M. Poterba & Julio J. Rotemberg, 1986. "Money in the Utility Function: An Empirical Implementation," NBER Working Papers 1796, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Andre Silva & Bernardino Adao, 2012. "Debt Financing," 2012 Meeting Papers 577, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    19. John Landon-Lane & Filippo Occhino, 2005. "Estimation and Evaluation of a Segmented Markets Monetary Model," Departmental Working Papers 200505, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    20. Enders, Zeno, 2010. "Heterogeneous consumers, segmented asset markets, and the effects of monetary policy," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 08/2010, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:1627. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.