Browsing by Author "Misch, Florian"

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Open Access
Complementarity in Models of Public Finance and Endogenous Growth
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2014) Misch, Florian; Gemmell, Norman; Kneller, Richard
This paper considers the effects of complementarity in private production between private and public inputs on optimal fiscal policy under the objective of growth maximization. Using an endogenous growth model with public finance and CES technology, it derives two central results. First, it shows that with complementarity, growth-maximizing fiscal policy is also affected by preference parameters, the degree of complementarity and the stock-flow properties of public inputs to private production. Second, it shows that optimal public spending composition and taxation are interrelated and also depend on the efficiency of public spending under growth maximization. Both results contrast with standard findings in the literature that are typically based on the assumption of Cobb-Douglas technology, and have important lessons for policy settings.
Open Access
Using Surveys of Business Perceptions as a Guide to Growth-Enhancing Fiscal Reforms
(Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, 2014) Misch, Florian; Gemmell, Norman; Kneller, Richard
This paper assesses the merits of using business perceptions of growth constraints as a guide to growth-enhancing fiscal policy reforms. Using endogenous growth models in which the government levies an income tax to provide public inputs to the production of private firms, the paper demonstrates that such perceptions of growth constraints may be misleading from a policy perspective. In particular firms can be expected to systematically overestimate the growth-enhancing effects of lower tax rates relative to public services and public capital, and underestimate the growth-enhancing effects of greater provision of public capital relative to taxation and public services. In addition, we show that firms rank different public services and different types of public capital according to the actual costs they impose on firms. It is then shown that these theoretical predictions regarding how firms rank constraints correspond closely to the observed ranking of constraints by firms in the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys.