Martin Feldstein ger ECB ett råd

Martin Feldstein  ger i dagens Wall Street Journal den europeiska centralbanken ECB ett råd. Följ inte den amerikanska centralbankens politik utan se till att medlemsländerna använder skattepolitiken för att få fart på ekonomin:

To increase spending in the economy, the ECB is considering large-scale purchases of sovereign bonds because eurozone countries individually cannot change their interest rates or exchange rates. The peripheral countries such as Italy and Spain that are most in need of stimulus also cannot use government spending or tax cuts because they have very high national debts. Quantitative easing therefore seems to the ECB to be the only option.

It isn’t. Individual eurozone countries could employ country-specific, revenue-neutral tax changes to raise private spending. In addition to the tax changes open to the U.S., a eurozone country could raise its value-added tax rate by two percentage points a year for five years while balancing the revenues with lower income-tax rates. This series of annual VAT-induced price increases would encourage consumers to spend before the increased value-added tax raises prices further.

Alltså höj momsen med 2 % om året i fem år framöver och sänk inkomstskatten så att effekten blir neutral för statsinkomsten. Härigenom skulle konsumtionen öka och det skulle bli den fart i ekonomin som nu är så hett eftersträvad.

WSJ