Daniel P. Murphy

Category: Stabilization Policy

  • Demand Stimulus as Social Policy

    with Alan J. Auerbach and Yuriy Gorodnichenko
    Forthcoming, Review of Economic Studies, Read

    Abstract

    We exploit a panel of city-level data with rich demographic information to estimate the distributional effects of Department of Defense spending and its effects on a range of social outcomes. The income generated by defense spending accrues predominantly to households without a bachelor’s degree. These households as well as Black households tend to disproportionately benefit from this spending. Defense spending also promotes a range of beneficial social outcomes that are often targeted by government programs, including reductions in poverty, divorce rates, disability rates, and mortality rates, as well as increases in homeownership, health insurance rates, and occupational prestige. We compare the effects of defense spending with the effects of general demand shocks and explore reasons for the differential effects of the shocks.

  • Government Debt Limits and Stabilization Policy

    with Eric R. Young
    IMF Economic Review, Read

    Abstract

    We evaluate alternative public debt management policies in light of constraints imposed by the effective lower bound on interest rates. Replacing the current limit on gross debt issued by the fiscal authority with a limit on consolidated debt of the government can ensure that output always reaches its potential, but it may permit excess government spending when the economy is away from the effective lower bound. The welfare-maximizing policy sets the gross debt limit to the level implied by Samuelson (1954), while the central bank finances government spending with money when the economy is at the effective lower bound.

  • Savings Policy and the Paradox of Thrift

    with Andrew Hayashi
    Yale Journal on Regulation, 34(3), 743-790, Read

    Abstract

    The debate among legal scholars about individuals’ failure to save enough for retirement adopts a “micro” perspective. It focuses on the causes and consequences of undersaving from the perspective of individuals and analyzes how legal interventions, such as tax subsidies and nudges, can best address individual saving mistakes. This debate depends on certain assumptions about how the macroeconomy operates. When these assumptions do not hold, neither do the implications of the micro analysis, turning the conventional analysis of undersaving on its head. In fact, in certain circumstances, saving imposes a negative externality. When this is true, what looks like undersaving at the individual level may constitute oversaving in the aggregate, and the private vice of overconsumption may in fact be a public virtue—the “paradox of thrift.” We adopt a macro perspective and argue for reforms of legal interventions designed to increase savings.