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In this paper we examine the relationship between the default risk of banks and sovereigns, i.e. the 'doom-loop'. Specifically, we try to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of the new recovery and resolution framework in the European Union. We use a panel with daily data on European banks and sovereigns ranging from 2012 to 2016 in order to test the effects of the Bank Recovery and Resolution Directive on the two-way feedback process. We find that there was a pronounced feedback loop between banks and sovereigns from 2012 to 2014. However, after the implementation of the European Banking Union, in 2015/2016, the magnitude of the doom-loop decreased and the spillovers became not statistically significant. Furthermore, our results suggest that the implementation of the new resolution framework is a suitable candidate to explain this finding. Overall, the results are robust across several specifications.
Sollte Klimapolitik auf Energiepreisanstiege reagieren und kurzfristig CO2-Preise anpassen, um Haushalte zu entlasten? Alkis Blanz, Ulrich Eydam, Maik Heinemann und Matthias Kalkuhl, Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) und Universität Potsdam, zeigen, dass die Verwendung der Einnahmen aus der CO2-Bepreisung von entscheidender Bedeutung ist. Werden diese weitestgehend durch Steuersenkungen oder Transfers an Haushalte rückverteilt, sollten CO2-Preise nicht an kurzfristige Energiepreisschwankungen angepasst werden. Haushalte profitieren stärker von einer direkten Stabilisierung ihres Einkommens als von der Stabilisierung der Energiepreise. Werden Einnahmen aus der CO2-Bepreisung nicht rückerstattet, sind dagegen antizyklische CO2-Preise wohlfahrtserhöhend.
Essays on Macroeconomics
(2021)
This dissertation consists of four self-contained papers. Each paper deals with a specific macroeconomic question. The first paper assesses the distributional implications of environmental policies from a general equilibrium macroeconomic perspective. I develop a New-Keynesian model with several types of uncertainties and frictions that incorporates liquidity constrained households. The model is calibrated to match the German economy and the numerical results show that climate policy instruments can be associated with regressive welfare effects. Furthermore, the analysis shows that these effects can be mitigated through an appropriate revenue recycling scheme. The second paper deals with short-run inequality dynamics within a real business cycle model. An empirical evaluation shows that the cyclical components of income inequality, the capital share and real GDP are correlated. We develop tractable representation of common inequality indicators in the general equilibrium model and show that the observed pattern is driven by innovations in the capital share. A Bayesian estimation of the model for the United States with data for the period 1948 to 2017 indicates that the model provides a reasonable fit for the data and successfully replicates the observed pattern of cyclical correlations. The third paper empirically examines the effects of banking regulation on the risk-relationship between sovereigns and banks. Based on a comprehensive data set of the European banking sector, we find that the implementation of the novel European banking regulation framework significantly contributed to a weakening of the risk-link between sovereigns and banks.The fourth paper empirically examines the role of institutional experience for institutional development in transition economies. To capture institutional experience, we develop a novel index, based on historical country records. The results of cross-sectional and panel estimations suggest that institutional experience helps to explain the divergent economic and institutional development in transition economies after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
The effects of energy price increases are heterogeneous between households and firms. Financially constrained poorer households, who spend a larger relative share of their income on energy, are particularly affected. In this analysis, we examine the macroeconomic and welfare effects of energy price shocks in the presence of credit-constrained households that have subsistence-level energy demand. Within a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model calibrated for the German economy, we compare the performance of different policy measures (transfers and energy subsidies) and different financing schemes (income tax vs. debt). Our results show that credit-constrained households prefer debt over tax financing regardless of the compensation measure due to their difficulty to smooth consumption. On the contrary, rich households tend to prefer tax-financed measures as they increase the labor supply of poor households. From an aggregate perspective, tax-financed measures targeting firms effectively cushion aggregate output losses.
In light of climate change mitigation efforts, revenues from climate policies are growing, with no consensus yet on how they should be used. Potential efficiency gains from reducing distortionary taxes and the distributional implications of different revenue recycling schemes are currently debated. To account for households heterogeneity and dynamic trade-offs, we study the macroeconomic and welfare performance of different revenue recycling schemes using an Environmental Two-Agent New-Keynesian model, calibrated on the German economy. We find that, in the long run, welfare gains are higher when revenues are used to reduce distortionary taxes on capital, but this comes at the cost of higher inequality: while all households prefer labor income tax reductions to lump-sum transfers, only financially unconstrained households are better off when reducing taxes on capital income. Interestingly, we find that over the transition period relevant to meet short-medium run climate targets, labor income tax cuts are the most efficient and equitable instrument.
Income inequality and taxes
(2023)
Economic literature offers several distinct explanations for the raising income inequality observed in several countries. In the debate about the causes of inequality a growing strand of research focuses on the effects of taxation on income inequality. We contribute to this literature by providing a systematic empirical account of the relationship between income inequality and personal income taxation (PIT) for a set of countries over the period 1981–2005. In order to take alternative explanations into account and to isolate the effects of tax progressivity, we include a wide range of control variables. We address potential reverse causality between inequality and PIT by using the variation in tax schedules of neighbouring countries. Our results confirm a statistically significant negative association between the progressivity of PIT and income inequality. Overall, we find that especially the average and the marginal tax rate have the potential to reduce income inequality. This finding is qualitatively robust across various different empirical specifications.
This paper examines how wealth and income inequality dynamics are related to fluctuations in the functional income distribution over the business cycle. In a panel estimation for OECD countries between 1970 and 2016, although inequality is, on average countercyclical and significantly associated with the capital share, one-third of the countries display a pro- or noncyclical relationship. To analyze the observed pattern, we incorporate distributive shocks into an RBC model, where agents are ex ante heterogeneous with respect to wealth and ability. We find that whether wealth and income inequality behave countercyclically or not depends on the elasticity of intertemporal substitution and the persistence of shocks. We match the model to quarterly US data using Bayesian techniques. The parameter estimates point toward a non-monotonic relationship between productivity and inequality fluctuations. On impact, inequality increases in response to TFP shocks but subsequently declines. Furthermore, TFP shocks explain 17% of inequality fluctuations.
Legal institutions, financial liberalization and financial development in transition economies
(2021)
Optimal carbon pricing with fluctuating energy prices — emission targeting vs. price targeting
(2022)
Prices of primary energy commodities display marked fluctuations over time. Market-based climate policy instruments (e.g., emissions pricing) create incentives to reduce energy consumption by increasing the user cost of fossil energy. This raises the question of whether climate policy should respond to fluctuations in fossil energy prices? We study this question within an environmental dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (E-DSGE) model calibrated on the German economy. Our results indicate that the welfare implications of dynamic emissions pricing crucially depend on how the revenues are used. When revenues are fully absorbed, a reduction in emissions prices stabilizes the economy in response to energy price shocks. However, when revenues are at least partially recycled, a stable emissions price improves overall welfare. This result is robust to different modeling assumptions.