“Starving the Beast? Intra-Generational Conflict and Balanced Budget Rules,” EER, 2007

European Economic Review 51(1), January 2007. PDF.

A balanced budget requirement does not only prevent fiscal policy makers from smoothing tax distortions but also affects their preferred choice of government spending. The paper analyzes the conditions under which groups opposed to government spending might want to implement a balanced budget requirement in order to induce the government to spend less. It shows that relaxing a balanced budget requirement need not be associated with higher government spending.

“The Stability Pact—Rationales, Problems, Alternatives,” Kyklos, 2006

Kyklos 59(4), November 2006, with Assar Lindbeck. PDF.

… the paper makes two contributions, one analytical and one substantive. On the analytical side, we apply economic theory to identify rationales for the SGP and to develop adequate policy responses in light of these rationales. … On the substantive side, we highlight the “legalistic” perspective adopted in the SGP. …

“Timing Tax Evasion,” JPubE, 2005

Journal of Public Economics 89(9-10), September 2005. PDF.

Standard models of tax evasion implicitly assume that evasion is either fully detected, or not detected at all. Empirically, this is not the case, casting into doubt the traditional rationales for interior evasion choices. I propose two alternative, dynamic explanations for interior tax evasion rates: First, fines increasing in the duration of an evasion spell, implying that the expected costs of evasion increase convexly with the time spent non-reporting, while the benefits increase linearly. Second, different vintages of income sources subject to aggregate risk and fixed costs when switched between evasion states. The dynamic approach yields a transparent representation of revenue losses and social costs due to tax evasion, novel findings on the effect of policy on tax evasion, and a tractable framework for the analysis of tax evasion dynamics.

“Macroeconomics I,” Stockholm, Spring 2005

PhD course in the Stockholm Doctoral Program.

SU’s official course page. The unofficial, but—in case of doubt—relevant course page is the one you are looking at. Syllabus, January 23. Schedule: Classes held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9–11 a.m. in these rooms. Approximately one topic per meeting. Problem sets: distributed and discussed by the TA, Martin Bech Holte. Course requirements: To pass the exam (which builds on the material covered in class).

“The Fiscal Myth of the Price Level,” QJE, 2004

Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(1), February 2004. PDF.

I examine the “fiscal theory of the price level” according to which “non-Ricardian” policy and predetermined nominal government debt fiscally determine prices. I argue that the non-Ricardian policy assumption and, by implication, fiscal price level determination are inconsistent with an equilibrium in which all asset holdings reflect optimal household choices. In such an equilibrium, policy must be Ricardian even if, in some states of nature, the government defaults or commits to an arbitrary real primary surplus sequence. I propose an alternative to the fiscal theory of the price level, based on nominal flows instead of nominal stocks. While this alternative framework establishes a consistent link between fiscal policy and the price level, it does not introduce inflationary fiscal effects beyond those suggested by Sargent and Wallace.

“Tax Smoothing versus Tax Shifting,” RED, 2004

Review of Economic Dynamics 7, January 2004. PDF.

Household-specific growth rates of the tax base imply that the timing of tax collections determines the distribution of tax burdens and wealth across households. Changes in fiscal policy do not only shift tax burdens across generations, but also within cohorts. Institutional deficit constraints settle tax shifting conflicts in favor of individuals with high income growth. With distortionary taxes, policy makers trade off the relative wealth effects of fiscal policy and the efficiency cost of household specific deadweight burdens. I apply the incidence analysis of fiscal policy to answer the question how the German unification should have optimally been financed.

“Macroeconomics I,” Stockholm, Spring 2004

PhD course in the Stockholm Doctoral Program.

SU’s official course page. The unofficial, but—in case of doubt—relevant course page is the one you are looking at. Syllabus. Schedule: Classes held on Tuesday and Thursday from 9–11 a.m. in these rooms. Approximately one topic per meeting. Problem sets: distributed and discussed by the TA, Emanuel Kohlscheen. Course requirements: To pass the exam (which builds on the material covered in class).

DAISY

DAISY stands for DIN A6 information system. It is an easy to handle, flexible, modular, and versatile tool that helps you to plan and manage projects, and store information. What fancy and high tech “personal planning systems” promise to achieve at a considerable price DAISY delivers basically for free, at the cost of a piece of paper.

DAISY consists of a collection of coloured plastic folders (how many? you choose), size DIN A6, filled with notes, sketches, copies of documents you consider important, etc. The only organizing principle of DAISY is the colour code of the plastic folders. Memo type information for example goes with a different colour than information related to longer run projects or facts that you want to store for later reference. DAISY works with just a few colours. But the colour code is sufficiently sophisticated to really work. The details, for example how many folders per colour you work with, are up to your needs and your logic. It is DAISY that adjusts, not you. How you structure the information in your folders is up to you too. Whether you simply take notes or prefer to draw mind maps, DAISY is perfectly flexible as it does not constrain you beyond the fact that the information has to be “entered” and should fit on two dimensions.

In contrast to many of the conventional systems DAISY likes information of any sort. If you get a business card you don’t have to type in all the information in order to synchronize. Instead, you just put the business card in the corresponding project folder. If you need the information you look it up in the folder, you don’t need to start up and search on your computer. If you get a useful or important document, e.g. an address list or a flow diagram you just copy it onto DIN A6 and put it in the appropriate folder. What do you do in the same situation if you have to rely on high tech…?

DAISY constrains you as little as necessary. It doesn’t force you to break any piece of new information into n pieces just because somebody thought at some point that any information should be composed of n pieces of information. DAISY instead encourages you to be creative. Its “open” way of structuring information supposedly corresponds with what cognitive science suggests to be the human way of doing it. In any case, if you like simplicity and functionality then you should like DAISY.

DAISY is not the solution to everything. But it is flexible enough to smoothly work together with other tools that have proven useful. For example, the boring low tech agenda that you get each year for free from your local bank. Also, and more high tech, it does make sense (I think) to store frequently used addresses (as well as address information that you want to electronically share) in a simple database, based for example on EXCEL. This doesn’t imply however that you need to carry a computer with you all the time in order to have these addresses available. Just print the file from time to time. It fits well into your DAISY. Finally, I have experimented with extending the DAISY logic to the organization of files on the computer. I think, it works well.

I am not aware of any “official” website for DAISY. But for further information (in German, DAISY seems to be particularly popular in Switzerland) you might want to check out the websites of this or this DAISY trainer and this DAISY club.