Workshop on Budget Analysis and Public Policy

Neale Mahoney, Trione Director of SIEPR and Professor of Economics

The CBO staff presentation in this session will start by describing CBO’s current top-down approach, as described in Huntley (2014), and then describe an alternative bottom-up approach.

• 2:15-3:15pm: CBO staff presentation: Mark Lasky and Matthew Wilson, CBO
• 3:15-3:30pm: Outside discussant #1: Nicolas Crouzet, Northwestern University
• 3:30-3:45pm: Outside discussant #2: Josh Rauh, Stanford University
• 3:45-4:15pm: Group discussion

Working dinner, including a conversation with UC Berkeley Professor Emi Nakamura moderated by Jeffrey Kling on how the role of potential output in macroeconomic forecasting relates to a plucking model of business cycles (as in Dupraz, Nakamura, Steinsson 2024) in which economic fluctuations are drops below the economy’s full potential ceiling rather than fluctuations around a maximum sustainable amount.

• Outside discussant: Ken Kuttner, Williams College

The CBO staff presentation in this session will describe CBO's current approach for modeling state fiscal policy responses to changes in federal policy, including a discussion of how those state responses may differ depending on the affected program and the policy change.  For example, in response to a cut in federal spending, states might increase their own spending (to offset a portion of the federal cuts) or lower their spending (in the case of a federal program with state matching requirements).

• 9-9:45am: CBO staff presentation: John Seliski, CBO
• 9:45-10am: Outside discussant #1: Jeff Clemens, UC San Diego
• 10-10:15am: Outside discussant #2: Laura Feiveson, The Federal Reserve
• 10:15-10:30am: Outside discussant #3: Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato, Stanford University
• 10:30-11am: Group discussion

• 2:00-3:00pm: Ramey presentation
• 3:00-3:15pm: CBO discussant #1: Devrim Demirel, Congressional Budget Office
• 3:15-3:30pm: CBO discussant #2: Junghoon Lee, Congressional Budget Office
• 3:30-4:00pm: Group discussion

Presentation by Chad Jones, Stanford

Panelists: 

• Stefania Albanesi, University of Miami
• Mike Geruso, University of Texas
• Chad Jones, Stanford University
• David Weil, Brown University 

Moderated by Alan Auerbach, UC Berkeley

CBO recently provided (2024) a preliminary assessment of the budgetary, economic, and distributional effects of three policies that would raise tariff rates on goods imported into the United States. As described in that document, CBO’s modeling of these effects is subject to a great deal of uncertainty given that the US has implemented no increases in tariffs of this size in more than 50 years. The CBO staff presentation in this session will outline CBO’s current approach to modeling trade and tariffs – which partially relies on the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) model – alongside some alternative approaches and their implications for the federal budget.

• 10:30-11:30am: CBO staff presentation: Austin Castellanos, Daniel Fried, and Peter Herman, CBO
• 11:30-11:45am: Outside discussant #1: Patrick Kennedy, UC Los Angeles
• 11:45-12:000m: Outside discussant #2: Benny Kleinman, Stanford University
• 12:00pm-12:30pm: Group discussion

Four 30-minute segments. A lead speaker (12-15 minutes) in each segment, followed by a moderated open discussion. 

Panelists: 

• John Cochrane, Hoover Institution
• Darrell Duffie, Stanford University
• Matt Kahn, University of Southern California
• Patrick McLaughlin, Hoover Institution

Moderated by Steve Davis, Hoover Institution

Workshop Debrief with Jeffrey Kling, CBO and Heidi Williams, Dartmouth