It’s a bit curi­ous to me that Mr. Hunger­ford, a finan­cial sup­porter of Obama, puts out a “non-​​partisan” study 7 weeks before the elec­tion, sup­port­ing the idea that tax rates have no affect on the economy.

In this context, Hungerford works for Congress, and thus must have had a request from some Congressional Committee to do the research. Might the Committee members have requested it in the expectation that it would help Obama? Possibly.

Am I to assume I won’t be see­ing a sim­i­lar paper ana­lyz­ing how gov­ern­ment spend­ing has affected eco­nomic growth, with a 1 year lag, begin­ning in 1945?

Not unless a Congressional Committee asks for it. The analysis I’ve done on this particular relationship has been inconclusive.

Instead of answering dc’s question, GROG starts another deflections by making an ad hominem attack on the author of the study with NOTHING to show for it but innuendo.

GROG, such stunts as this is why I feel justified in making charges against your “methods” as I did in #30. You have NO REBUTTAL and then, when you are asked for something,  you make an assertion THAT THE FACTS do not support, then when called on THAT, you resort to a baseless ad hominem. 

I believe, IMHO, that you have no ground to take insult when so accused, my friend.

The study also showed (figure 3, page 7) that private savings tends to rise along with increasing top marginal rates and also along with increasing capital gains rates. You have said increased personal savings is good.

The study also shows that investment rates tend to fall with increasing top marginal rates and increasing cap gains, but you seem to think personal savings is what drives investment — that doesn’t seem to be true.

The study also shows (figure 4, page 8) that labor productivity rises along with increasing top marginal rates. Productivity seems to fall with increasing cap gains rates, but this is a much smaller correlation.

Increasing top marginal rate doesn’t seem to affect GDP growth, but (as I said) there is a weak correlation between increasing GDP and increasing cap gains rates.

And again, the study definitely shows wealth disparity increasing as the top marginal rate and the cap gains rate decreases. The share of wealth owned by “labor” increases (fig 9 page 15) as the top marginal and top cap gains rates increase — though, since this doesn’t hurt GDP growth, one cannot argue that the gains by labor come at the expense of the rest of the economy.

All of which shows that many things affect the economy, and often in ways that differ from conservative economic expectations.

No, it doesn’t say that at all.

Sorry, I misremembered. I stand corrected. The correlation of faster growth is with higher capital gains tax rates. (Again, this seems in contraindication of your contention that the study claimed “nothing has an effect on the economy”). As the BI article said, in describing Figure 5,

The lefthand chart shows that there is no correlation between GDP growth and the top marginal tax rates. The righthand chart shows that there might be a very modest tendency toward faster economic growth with higher capital gains rates.

B)  Let’s see.  An ardent supporter of Obama and the Democratic party.  Study is released 7 weeks before the election. He does not appear to have any study prepared comparing such things as government spending and economic growth, or tax rates and revenue.  So yes, I would say Mr. Hungerford released this study with an agenda in mind.

It’s a bit curi­ous to me that Mr. Hunger­ford, a finan­cial sup­porter of Obama, puts out a “non-​​partisan” study 7 weeks before the elec­tion, sup­port­ing the idea that tax rates have no affect on the economy.

A) His paper didn’t show that. As the BI arti­cle summarized, the paper showed “the bot­tom line appears to be that low taxes do not spur eco­nomic growth and DO cause greater eco­nomic inequality.” I wouldn’t categorize “greater eco­nomic inequality” as being “no effect on the economy.” Further, his paper showed that increasing top marginal tax rates might have the effect of increasing economic growth. I also would not call that “no effect on the economy.”

B) Are you implying something about the timing of the release of the paper? If so, do you have any evidence to support your innuendo?

Am I to assume I won’t be seeing a similar paper analyzing how government spending has affected economic growth, with a 1 year lag, beginning in 1945?

Per­haps should have started with ANOVA and worked up from there!

To ASUPERNOVA.

How about refus­ing to accept any­thing but the valid­ity of a regres­sion analy­sis that finds that noth­ing has an affect on eco­nomic growth?

You’re making a mistake common to those who are somewhat new to regression analyses. A strong correlation is good evidence for causality, but a lack of an apparent correlation is not, in fact, good evidence against causality.