Laurence J. Kotlikoff

Assaf Razin

This paper examines the bequest\gift behavior of altruistic parents who do not know their children's abilities and cannot observe their children's work effort. Parents are likely to respond to this information problem by making larger bequests to higher earning children and by using their transfers implicitly either to tax at the margin low earning children or to subsidize at the margin high earning children. These implicit tax rates may be quite large, despite the fact that total transfers are small. The paper suggests that labor supply studies should take into account potential implicit family taxation as wall as official government taxation. In addition, the fact that the family may play an implicit role in taxation means that there may be less need for the government to play such a role.

Bequests as an Implicit Optimal Tax Structure and the Possibility that Altruistic Bequests are Not Equalizing

Making Bequests Without Spoiling Children

Robert W. Rosenthal

This article demonstrates that Ricardian Equivalence does not necessarily hold in models with altruistic transfers once one takes into account the strategic behavior of recipients as well as donors. To influence the final allocation of consumption in altruistic settings, potential recipients can threaten to refuse as well as accept transfers. We apply the Extended Nash Bargaining Solution to the problem of an altruistic parent and a possibly altruistic child. The parent and child first choose a threat point noncooperatively; this threat point then influences the final allocation of consumption through the standard Nash Bargaining Solution, While the potential recipient can refuse transfers from the potential donor, he cannot refuse transfers from the government. When the government redistributes between the parent and child, it changes their endowments and the equilibrium threats, and thus the final allocation of consumption. The feature of the cooperative model presented here that leads to the failure of Ricardian Equivalence may be characteristic of a wider class of cooperative and noncooperative altruism models. This feature is that noninterior strategic postures underlie interior transfer behavior and that these non- interior strategic postures are altered by government redistribution.

A Strategic Altruism Model in which Ricardian Equivalence Does Not Hold

Jacob A. Frenkel

Covering a full array of topics in open economy macro and public economics, Fiscal Policies and Growth in the World Economy has been thoroughly revised and extended. The added material in this new edition includes stochastic rational-expectations extensions of the Mundell-Fleming model, the development of a dynamic-optimizing approach of the trade balance, and an entirely new part on issues of international economic convergence, which also contains a comprehensive policy overview. Other chapters have been updated or reorganized, and there is a brief guide to solving typical dynamic macro problems along with a printout of software suitable for numerical simulations. A companion diskette containing solutions in dynamic macro problems and some sample programs is available in GAUSS for IBM. The exercises and solutions manual by Krueger, Ostry, and Yuen has also been updated and extended. Fiscal Policies and Growth in the World Economy has been used successfully in graduate and senior undergraduate courses in international economics and public finance. The objective of this new edition remains the same as before: to treat the major topics in macro and public economics using both traditional and modern approaches. The traditional approach is first explained, from the simple income-expenditure model to the more advanced stochastic Mundell-Fleming model. The modern intertemporal approach is then presented, starting with the simple two-period model and extending it to a full-fledged dynamic model. Other sections review recent developments in the world economy; government spending, budget deficits, and differences across international taxation; and economic growth in the world economy, especially the convergence of income and growth levels across countries.

Fiscal Policies and Growth in the World Economy

Efraim Sadka

Positive and Normative Aspects

Interactions Between International Migration and International Trade

Mr.Gian Milesi-Ferretti

The paper studies determinants and consequences of sharp reductions in current account imbalances (reversals) in low- and middle-income countries. It poses two questions: what triggers reversals, and what factors explain how costly reversals are? It finds that both domestic variables, such as the current account balance, openness to trade, and the level of reserves, and external variables, such as terms of trade shocks, U.S. real interest rates, and growth in industrial countries, seem to play important roles in explaining reversals in current account imbalances. It also finds some evidence that countries with a less appreciated real exchange rate, higher investment, and more openness before the reversal tend to grow faster after a reversal occurs.

An Empirical Analysis

Sharp Reductions in Current Account Deficits

Elhanan Helpman

An Economic Perspective

Social Policy Evaluation

Joel Slemrod

The increasing globalization of economic activity is bringing an awareness of the international consequences of tax policy. The move toward the common European market in 1992 raises the important question of how inefficiencies in the various tax systems—such as self-defeating tax competition among member nations—will be addressed. As barriers to trade and investment tumble, cross-national differences in tax structures may loom larger and create incentives for relocations of capital and labor; and efficient and equitable income tax systems are becoming more difficult to administer and enforce, particularly because of the growing importance of multinational enterprises. What will be the role of tax policy in this more integrated world economy? Assaf Razin and Joel Slemrod gathered experts from two traditionally distinct specialties, taxation and international economics, to lay the groundwork for understanding these issues, which will require the attention of scholars and policymakers for years to come. Contributors describe the basic provisions of the U.S. tax code with respect to international transactions, highlighting the changes contained in the U.S. Tax Reform Act of 1986; explore the ways that tax systems influence the decisions of multinationals; examine the effect of taxation on trade patterns and capital flows; and discuss the implications of the opening world economy for the design of optimal international tax policy. The papers will prove valuable not only to scholars and students, but to government economists and international tax lawyers as well.

Assaf Razin

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