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A Brigham Young University Macroeconomics and Computational Laboratory project in conjunction with the Open Source Policy Center. |
This repository includes the data used to calibrate the model along with all the necessary Python code to solve and simulate. |
Abstract |
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This project builds, calibrates and simulates the effects of changes in various taxes on the U.S. economy in the contect of a large macro OLG model. Our particular emphasis is on how the stream of tax revenues changes over time. |
The BYU-OSPC model is similar to the Zodrow-Diamond (ZD) model in being a computable CGE-OLG model. We solve as ZD do using the Auerbach-Kolikoff time-path iteration method. |
Demographics |
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- Households live for a maximum of 100 years. (ZD use 55-year-lived agents)
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- They become economically active at age 20, retire at age 65, and die by age 100.
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- We explicitly consider mortality risk in our model. (ZD have no mortality risk)
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- The law of large numbers guarantees that the number of households in each cohort is perfectly predictable.
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- We control for new births and immigration. (ZD use a fixed population growth rate)
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- We include both accidental and intended bequests
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Households |
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- N different ability levels which are fixed at birth. (ZD use 12 ability levels)
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- Different ability types have different age profiles for their labor productivity. (Same as ZD)
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- Unintentional bequest are distributed to other agents of the same ability type at the beginning of the next period. (ZD have no mortality risk and thus no unintentional bequests)
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- Households that live to the final age will leave an intentional bequest which is modelled as an additional term in their utility function. (Same as ZD)
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- Households optimally choose their labor supply, consumption, and savings each period.
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- We will likely allow for consumption of 12 goods (DZ have 4 goods), including health care, energy, and housing, which have special treatment in the tax code.
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- a payroll tax on wage income only which funds a social security benefit for retired households
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- Household statutory marginal income tax rates are based on current income (ZD base tax rates on life-time income)
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Firms |
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- Maximize the discounted present value of all future profit streams.
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- Firm value and thus investment incentives are affected by tax policy.
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- Firms acquire capital via investment and hire labor.
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- Firms finance investment with retained earnings, debt, and new equity issuance.
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- Likely more about 12 different sectors (a sector is represented by an industry-business entity type (corp/non-corp) combination) (ZD have four sectors)
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- Will include corporate and non-corporate sectors
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- Will include a multinational sector. These will be corporate businesses and will probably separately model the manufacturing and services industries.
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- Industries not yet determined, but likely to include manufacturing, services (ex health care), health care, energy, housing industries.
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- Likely have with corporate and non-corporate sectors in each industry.
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Government |
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- For 10 years the government collects whatever tax revenue is implied by the chosen tax structure.
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- After 10 years spending cuts are imposed so that the debt to GDP ratio stabilizes in the long run.
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Market Clearing |
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- Markets are perfectly competitive. (Same as ZD)
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- The economy is closed to the rest of the world (same as ZDâs simple model).
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- The exception to this are multinational businesses, who can use the rest of the world to shift profits overseas.
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Contributors |