The 2015 Q3 data are available here. Dan O’Brien comments on the figures here.
Category: Fiscal Policy
I’m writing an economics column in Critical Quarterly, a humanities journal, which is a bit of fun. They are supposedly free to view for 12 months after publication. I already posted a link to the first, on the European democratic deficit, but neglected to link to the second, on migration. The third, on secular stagnation, is available here.
Written for the RENUA flat taxes event today.
When all the little economists are in short pants, we learn the principles of public finance. Governments have to tax households and firms in order to provide services the market won’t, like libraries, street lighting, and national defense, as well as redistributing income from the rich to the poor as an aid to social solidarity. Taxes are a necessary evil. All taxes induce distortions to people’s behaviour. Some distortions, like the plastic bag tax, are clearly good. They make almost no one worse off and make lots of people better off. Recurrent taxes on property are in fact the least distortive to long run GDP per capita we have. While a site value tax would have been perfect, the LPT does a similar if suboptimal job.
Some taxes are highly distortionary, such as a very low corporation tax rate, or a very high income tax rate. These make lots of people better (and worse) off and damage important incentives. An efficient tax structure would deliver the funds to power public services with the minimum of distortions to individual and collective incentives. The theory of public finance has come around to the view that marginal taxes are not the most important thing to worry about, in information-opaque systems, the average tax rate should be relied on most heavily. The all-in tax rate for personal income tax & employee social security contributions is 52% here, relative to 46% on average across the OECD.
Perhaps more importantly, the ability to balance the average tax rate with a corruption-resistant tax structure through which taxes are collected and disbursed is a major asset of any public finance structure. Important results have now been established showing the spread of corruption is quite badly affected by the ease with which the variables which determine the tax base can be manipulated by those in power. If we worry about the Noonan-end of the tax gathering element first, then, two principles which therefore make sense are simplicity and certainty with respect to the tax system.
Available here.
Here are three papers I have read recently.
1. Reinhart and Trebesch on the way that external debts can hollow out local democracies. No need to elaborate on this I think.
2. Avdjiev, McCauley and Shin on cross-border banking: well worth a read for people not familiar with this stuff. They are talking about complicated transactions, but as we know in Ireland, much simpler transactions (banks borrowing overseas) can have dangerous consequences.
3. Athanasios Orphanides on the highly politicised nature of crisis decision-making in the Eurozone.
From 3, and from everything that we have observed during this crisis, from Ireland in 2010 to Greece in 2015, I infer that a small country is much more vulnerable inside the Eurozone than outside, if it gets into trouble. Outside, you will deal with the IMF on its own, and they have a standard policy template: debts will be written down, currencies will be devalued, and yes, there will also be austerity. Inside the Eurozone creditor countries will sit alongside the IMF at the table and you may find that neither of the first two policies will be feasible, which will make the austerity far more harmful than it would otherwise be, both economically and politically.
From 2, I infer that a small country needs to watch its banks like a hawk, especially if it is inside the Eurozone, because (from 1, and 3, and from what we have experienced since 2010) the political consequences of not doing so are just too damaging.
And from 1 and 3, I infer that government debts are something that small countries inside the Eurozone also need to be very concerned about. Especially in a monetary union without a banking union, like ours.*
So I find myself in agreement with Colm McCarthy. As was the case 15 years ago, we need to worry about the possible real exchange rate consequences of expansionary fiscal policy at this point in the cycle. And to be fair to the Irish economics profession, lots of people did worry about that then. But the main concern for me is no longer about economics, but about the risks to our Republic’s democracy. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
*What is a banking union? If Arizona elects a bunch of communists or survivalists to run the state, and the state budget explodes as a result, local banks will still be backed up by the Fed. My money will still be safe. I will still be able to withdraw it if I choose. This is what a banking union looks like, and don’t let anyone in Brussels or Frankfurt tell you any different.