The Role of Government

​

​

The opinions expressed are solely those of the presenters and do not reflect the opinions of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas or the Federal Reserve System.

Role of Government in a Market Economy

• Maintain legal and social framework
• Maintain competition
• Provide public goods and services
• Redistribute income
• Correct for externalities
• Stabilize the economy

Two Types of Policies

Roles of Government

• Correct for externalities
• Provide public goods and services
• Redistribute income
• Stabilize the economy

Externalities

• Benefits or costs from a transaction extend beyond the buyer or seller
• Positive externalities
• Education
• Technology spillovers or patent protection
• Negative externalities
• Pollution

Fiscal Policy Tasks

• Correct for externalities
• Provide public goods and services
• Redistribute income
• Stabilize the economy

Potential Market Failures

Potential for Market Failure

• Public goods are subject to a free-rider problem
• Lighthouse, basic research
• Common resources can lead to the tragedy of the commons
• Clean air and water, congested cities

​

Natural Monopolies

• Some industries are characterized by conditions that create barriers to entry
• Location
• Economies of scale
• Utilities are the classic example
• Water
• Cable television
• Electricity

​

​

Protected Monopolies

• Barriers to entry in some industries are the result of specific protections granted by government
• Licenses
• Patents
• Examples
• Concessions in national park
• Pharmaceuticals

​

​

Fiscal Policy Tasks

• Correct for externalities
• Provide public goods and services
• Redistribute income
• Stabilize the economy

Federal Government: Receipts

• Individual income taxes
• Social insurance taxes
• Corporate income taxes
• Other

Structure of Taxes

Structure of Taxes

Federal Government: Spending

• Social Security
• National defense
• Income security
• Medicare
• Health
• Net interest
• Other

Fiscal Policy Tasks

• Correct for externalities
• Provide public goods and services
• Redistribute income
• Stabilize the economy

Business Cycle

Expansionary Fiscal Policy

• Response to a recession (economy is operating below full employment)
• Seeks to stimulate production (and consumption)
• Directly (expenditures ↑)
• Indirectly (taxes ↓ to encourage household spending or investment spending)

​

​

Contractionary fiscal policy

• Response to inflation (economy is operating above full employment and prices are rising)
• Seeks to reduce production (and consumption)
• Directly (expenditures ↓)
• Indirectly (taxes ↑ to discourage household or investment spending)
• Politically difficult

Fiscal Response to Economic Contractions

• New Deal
• Great Society
• 2008 Financial Crisis

Sinking into Depression

New Deal

“We have two problems: First, to meet the immediate distress; second, to build up a basis of permanent employment. As to immediate relief, the first principle is that this nation, this national government if you like, owes a positive duty that no citizen shall be permitted to starve. In addition to providing emergency relief, the federal government should and must provide temporary work wherever that is possible.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

October 1932

Goals of the New Deal

• Relief programs to help immediately
• Recovery programs to rebuild
• Reform programs to prevent the disaster from reoccurring

Alphabet Soup

Alphabet Soup

Lasting Recovery?

Assessment – A New Deal Box

• Front of box:
• Name and abbreviation of the program
• Art relating to the program
• Purpose of the New Deal program
• Top of box:
• Dates of program
• Purpose of program (relief, reform, recovery)
• Side panel one:
• Following the “Nutrition Facts” format, create a “Program Effects on the Economy”
• Biographical information about Franklin D. Roosevelt
• Side panel two:
• Description of the program in paragraph form
• Description of end of program or its current-day status
• Back panel:
• Game, word search, puzzle or cartoon

Employment Act of 1946

• It is the policy and responsibility of the federal government to use all practical means to promote maximum employment, production and purchasing power.
• Three goals
• Full employment
• Price stability
• Economic growth

​

Great Society

• Aid to education
• Funded students (instead of schools)
• Medicaid and Medicare (1965)
• Created a new entitlement in perpetuity
• Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
• Abolished the national-origin quota system
• Created family reunification policy

​

Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act �The Humphrey-Hawkins Act (1978)

An Act to translate into practical reality the right of all Americans who are able, willing, and seeking to work to full opportunity for useful paid employment at fair rates of compensation;

to assert the responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable programs and policies to promote full employment, production, and real income, balanced growth, adequate productivity growth, proper attention to national priorities, and reasonable price stability;

to require the President each year to set forth explicit short-term and medium-term economic goals;

to achieve a better integration of general and structural economic policies;

and to improve the coordination of economic policymaking within the Federal Government. �

Fiscal Responses to 2008 Recession

Two Types of Policies

Questions?