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The Near Term Growth Impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

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Abstract

This note uses existing empirical estimates of the macroeconomic effects of tax changes to project the near term impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on US GDP growth. Applying recent reduced form estimates of tax multipliers with the projected revenue impact of the Act yields a level of GDP that is predicted to be 1.3% higher by 2020, with most of the growth front-loaded in 2018. Accounting for the composition of the Act in terms of its individual and corporate provisions leads to a similar GDP increase by 2020, but with stronger growth in 2018 and a partial reversal in the following years. Accounting for the impact of TCJA on marginal individual tax rates raises the projected growth impact considerably, while accounting for the distribution of the tax changes across income groups suggests a more delayed positive impact on GDP. These projections are conditional on mean-reverting dynamics of future taxes that are estimated from postwar US data.

Suggested Citation

  • Karel Mertens, 2018. "The Near Term Growth Impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," Working Papers 1803, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:feddwp:1803
    DOI: 10.24149/wp1803
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    Cited by:

    1. Olivier Blanchard, 2019. "Public Debt and Low Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1197-1229, April.
    2. Benjamin Born & Gernot J. Müller & Moritz Schularick & Petr Sedláček, 2021. "The macroeconomic impact of Trump," Policy Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(5-6), pages 580-591, November.
    3. Mertens, Karel, 2019. "State-level implications of federal tax policies: Comments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 91-93.
    4. Ilzetzki, Ethan, 2018. "Tax reform and the political economy of the tax base," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 197-210.
    5. M. P. Afanas’ev & N. N. Shash, 2021. "From Surplus to Deficit Fiscal Policy," Studies on Russian Economic Development, Springer, vol. 32(5), pages 476-484, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal policy; Taxation; Tax Cuts and Jobs Act;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue

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