Person: Barro, Robert
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Barro
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Barro, Robert
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Publication On the Welfare Costs of Consumption Uncertainty(National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006) Barro, RobertSatisfactory calculations of the welfare cost of aggregate consumption uncertainty require a framework that replicates major features of asset prices and returns, such as the high equity premium and low risk-free rate. A Lucas-tree model with rare but large disasters is such a framework. In a baseline simulation, the welfare cost of disaster risk is large -- society would be willing to lower real GDP by about 20% each year to eliminate all disaster risk, including wars. In contrast, the welfare cost from usual economic fluctuations is much smaller, though still important -- corresponding to lowering GDP by around 1.5% each year.Publication Futures Markets and the Fluctuations in Inflation, Monetary Growth, and Asset Returns(University of Chicago Press, 1986) Barro, RobertInflation and nominal interest rates have been volatile in recent years. Futures contracts in price indices would help in this environment by enhancing information about prices and by providing a convenient means for people to hedge against inflation. There is some evidence that the availability of these instruments would encourage investment and reduce the mean real rate of return on long-term bonds. Indexed bonds--which are now significant in Britain--serve a similar purpose. IN the absence of such bonds, there would be a market for price-index futures, although the volume of trading would probably be modest.Publication Inflationary Finance and the Welfare Cost of Inflation(University of Chicago Press, 1972) Barro, RobertThis paper applies previous theoretical and empirical results on inflation and demand for money to a study of inflationary finance and the welfare cost of inflation. The amount of revenue generated by a steady inflation is derived as a function of the inflation rate and some underlying parameters. Empirically, the revenue-maximizing rate is on the order of 140 percent per month with the corresponding revenue approximating 15 percent of national income. It is argued that hyper-inflations become unstable when the revenue-maximizing rate is exceeded. Because inflation leads to higher transaction costs (resulting from greater payment frequencies and reduced use of "money" as a payments medium), there is a net social cost attached to inflationary finance. The model implies that marginal collection costs of inflationary finance exceed 50 percent for all positive rates of inflation-hence, alternative means of raising revenue should be socially preferable. The analysis also provides estimates of the social gain from moving to the optimum quantity of money as 1-3 percent of income.Publication Monopoly and Contrived Depreciation(University of Chicago Press, 1972) Barro, RobertNo abstract provided.Publication Perceived Wealth in Bonds and Social Security and the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem: Reply to Feldstein and Buchanan(University of Chicago Press, 1976) Barro, RobertPublication Unanticipated Money, Output, and the Price Level in the United States(University of Chicago Press, 1978) Barro, RobertEarlier analysis of unanticipated money growth is extended to output (GNP) and the price level (GNP deflator) for recent U.S. experience. Price level determination is more complicated than output determination, because both anticipated and unanticipated money movements are involved. Empirical results accord well with the model-notably, they support the key hypothesis of a one-to-one, contemporaneous link be- tween anticipated money and the price level. Precise estimates are obtained for the lagged responses of output and prices to unanticipated money movements. Cross-equation comparisons indicate that the price response to unanticipated money movements has a longer lag than the output response. A form of lagged adjustment in money demand can account for this difference. The forecasts for inflation average 5.5 percent per year for 1977-80.Publication On the Determination of the Public Debt(University of Chicago Press, 1979) Barro, RobertA public debt theory is constructed in which the Ricardian invariance theorem is valid as a first-order proposition but where the dependence of excess burden on the timing of taxation implies an optimal time path of debt issue. A central proposition is that deficits are varied in order to maintain expect ed constancy in tax rates. This behavior implies a positive effect on debt issue of temporary increases in government spending (as in wartime) a countercyclical response of debt to temporary income movements, and a one-to-one effect of expected inflation on nominal debt growth. Debt issue would be invariant with the outstanding debt-income ratio and, except for a minor effect, with the level of government spending. Hypotheses are tested on U.S. data since World WXar1. Results are basically in accord Fith the theory. It also turns out that a small set of explanatory variables can account for the principal movements in interest-bearing federal debt since the 1920s.Publication Output Effects of Government Purchases(University of Chicago Press, 1981) Barro, RobertThe theoretical analysis focuses on the distinction between temporary and permanent movements in government purchases. Under plausible conditions, the temporary case involves an output response that is positive, less than one-to-one with the change in government purchases, and larger than that generated by an equal-sized, but permanent, shift in purchases. The equilibrium real rate of return rises in the temporary case, but changes little in the permanent one. Defense purchases are divided empirically into "permanent" and "temporary" components by considering the role of (temporary) wars. No temporary shifts in nondefense purchases were isolated. Empirical results verify an expansionary output effect for temporary purchases that exceeds that of permanent purchases. The results for some other expectational hypotheses are found to be generally sup- portive of the theory.Publication An Efficiency-Wage Theory of the Weather(University of Chicago Press, 1989) Barro, RobertNo abstract provided.Publication Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogeneous Growth(University of Chicago Press, 1990) Barro, RobertOne strand of endogenous-growth models assumes constant returns to a broad concept of capital. I extend these models to include tax- financed government services that affect production or utility. Growth and saving rates fall with an increase in utility-type expenditures; the two rates rise initially with productive government expenditures but subsequently decline. With an income tax, the decentralized choices of growth and saving are "too low," but if the production function is Cobb-Douglas, the optimizing government still satisfies a natural condition for productive efficiency. Empirical evidence across countries supports some of the hypotheses about government and growth.
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