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Are Government Spending Multipliers Greater During Periods of Slack?

Are Government Spending Multipliers Greater During Periods of Slack? PDF Author: Michael T. Owyang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A key question that has arisen during recent debates is whether government spending multipliers are larger during times when resources are idle. This paper seeks to shed light on this question by analyzing new quarterly historical data covering multiple large wars and depressions in the U.S. and Canada. Using an extension of Ramey's (2011) military news series and Jordà's (2005) method for estimating impulse responses, we find no evidence that multipliers are greater during periods of high unemployment in the U.S. In every case, the estimated multipliers are below unity. We do find some evidence of higher multipliers during periods of slack in Canada, with some multipliers above unity.

Are Government Spending Multipliers Greater During Periods of Slack?

Are Government Spending Multipliers Greater During Periods of Slack? PDF Author: Michael T. Owyang
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A key question that has arisen during recent debates is whether government spending multipliers are larger during times when resources are idle. This paper seeks to shed light on this question by analyzing new quarterly historical data covering multiple large wars and depressions in the U.S. and Canada. Using an extension of Ramey's (2011) military news series and Jordà's (2005) method for estimating impulse responses, we find no evidence that multipliers are greater during periods of high unemployment in the U.S. In every case, the estimated multipliers are below unity. We do find some evidence of higher multipliers during periods of slack in Canada, with some multipliers above unity.

Government Spending Multipliers in Good Times and in Bad

Government Spending Multipliers in Good Times and in Bad PDF Author: Valerie Ann Ramey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government spending policy
Languages : en
Pages : 58

Book Description
This paper investigates whether U.S. government spending multipliers differ according to two potentially important features of the economy: (1) the amount of slack and (2) whether interest rates are near the zero lower bound. We shed light on these questions by analyzing new quarterly historical U.S. data covering multiple large wars and deep recessions. We estimate a state-dependent model in which impulse responses and multipliers depend on the average dynamics of the economy in each state. We find no evidence that multipliers differ by the amount of slack in the economy. These results are robust to many alternative specifications. The results are less clear for the zero lower bound. For the entire sample, there is no evidence of elevated multipliers near the zero lower bound. When World War II is excluded, some point estimates suggest higher multipliers during the zero lower bound state, but they are not statistically different from the normal state. Our results imply that, contrary to recent conjecture, government spending multipliers were not necessarily higher than average during the Great Recession.

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures PDF Author: Sokbae Lee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description


The Euro-Area Government Spending Multiplier at the Effective Lower Bound

The Euro-Area Government Spending Multiplier at the Effective Lower Bound PDF Author: Adalgiso Amendola
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1498322913
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 57

Book Description
We build a factor-augmented interacted panel vector-autoregressive model of the Euro Area (EA) and estimate it with Bayesian methods to compute government spending multipliers. The multipliers are contingent on the overall monetary policy stance, captured by a shadow monetary policy rate. In the short run (one year), whether the fiscal shock occurs when the economy is at the effective lower bound (ELB) or in normal times does not seem to matter for the size of the multiplier. However, as the time horizon increases, multipliers diverge across the two regimes. In the medium run (three years), the average multiplier is about 1 in normal times and between 1.6 and 2.8 at the ELB, depending on the specification. The difference between the two multipliers is distributed largely away from zero. More generally, the multiplier is inversely correlated with the level of the shadow monetary policy rate. In addition, we verify that EA data lend support to the view that the multiplier is larger in periods of economic slack, and we show that the shadow rate and the state of the business cycle are autonomously correlated with its size. The econometric approach deals with several technical problems highlighted in the empirical macroeconomic literature, including the issues of fiscal foresight and limited information.

Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis

Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis PDF Author: Alberto Alesina
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022601844X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 596

Book Description
The recent recession has brought fiscal policy back to the forefront, with economists and policy makers struggling to reach a consensus on highly political issues like tax rates and government spending. At the heart of the debate are fiscal multipliers, whose size and sensitivity determine the power of such policies to influence economic growth. Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis focuses on the effects of fiscal stimuli and increased government spending, with contributions that consider the measurement of the multiplier effect and its size. In the face of uncertainty over the sustainability of recent economic policies, further contributions to this volume discuss the merits of alternate means of debt reduction through decreased government spending or increased taxes. A final section examines how the short-term political forces driving fiscal policy might be balanced with aspects of the long-term planning governing monetary policy. A direct intervention in timely debates, Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis offers invaluable insights about various responses to the recent financial crisis.

Confidence and the Transmission of Government Spending Shocks

Confidence and the Transmission of Government Spending Shocks PDF Author: Ruediger Bachmann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Consumer confidence
Languages : en
Pages : 44

Book Description
Abstract: There seems to be a widespread belief among economists, policy-makers, and members of the media that the "confidence'" of households and businesses is a critical component in the transmission of fiscal policy shocks into economic activity. We take this proposition to the data using standard structural VARs with government spending and aggregate output augmented to include empirical measures of consumer or business confidence. We also estimate non-linear VAR specifications to allow for differential impacts of government spending in "normal'' times versus recessions. In normal times confidence does not react significantly to unexpected increases in government spending and spending multipliers are in the neighborhood of one; during recessions confidence rises and spending multipliers are significantly larger. We then quantify the importance of the systematic response of confidence to spending shocks for the spending multiplier and find that, in normal times, confidence is irrelevant for the transmission of government spending shocks to output, but during periods of economic slack it is important. We argue and present evidence that it is not confidence per se â?? in the sense of pure sentiment â?? that matters for the transmission of spending shocks during downturns, but rather that the composition of spending during a downtown is different. In particular, spending shocks during downturns predict future productivity improvements through a persistent increase in government investment relative to consumption, which is in turn reflected in higher measured confidence.

Understanding the Size of the Government Spending Multiplier

Understanding the Size of the Government Spending Multiplier PDF Author: Régis Barnichon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fiscal policy
Languages : en
Pages : 50

Book Description
Despite intense scrutiny, estimates of the government spending multiplier remain highly uncertain, with values ranging from 0.5 to 2. While an increase in government spending is generally assumed to have the same (mirror-image) effect as a decrease in government spending, we show that relaxing this assumption is important to understand the effects of fiscal policy. Regardless of whether we identify government spending shocks from (i) a narrative approach, or (ii) a timing restriction, we find that the contractionary multiplier --the multiplier associated with a negative shock to government spending-- is above 1, while the expansionary multiplier --the multiplier associated with a positive shock-- is substantially below 1. The multiplier is largest in recessions, as found in previous studies, but only because the contractionary multiplier is largest in recessions. The expansionary multiplier is always below 1 and not larger in recessions. We argue that our results help understand the wide range of multiplier estimates found in the literature.

Investigating Government Spending Multiplier for the US Economy: Empirical Evidence Using a Triple Lasso Approach

Investigating Government Spending Multiplier for the US Economy: Empirical Evidence Using a Triple Lasso Approach PDF Author: Zacharias Bragoudakis
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description


What Have We Learned?

What Have We Learned? PDF Author: George A. Akerlof
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262529858
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 369

Book Description
Top economists consider how to conduct policy in a world where previous beliefs have been shattered by the recent financial and economic crises. Since 2008, economic policymakers and researchers have occupied a brave new economic world. Previous consensuses have been upended, former assumptions have been cast into doubt, and new approaches have yet to stand the test of time. Policymakers have been forced to improvise and researchers to rethink basic theory. George Akerlof, Nobel Laureate and one of this volume's editors, compares the crisis to a cat stuck in a tree, afraid to move. In April 2013, the International Monetary Fund brought together leading economists and economic policymakers to discuss the slowly emerging contours of the macroeconomic future. This book offers their combined insights. The editors and contributors—who include the Nobel Laureate and bestselling author Joseph Stiglitz, Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen, and the former Governor of the Bank of Israel Stanley Fischer—consider the lessons learned from the crisis and its aftermath. They discuss, among other things, post-crisis questions about the traditional policy focus on inflation; macroprudential tools (which focus on the stability of the entire financial system rather than of individual firms) and their effectiveness; fiscal stimulus, public debt, and fiscal consolidation; and exchange rate arrangements.

The Macroeconomic Effects of Public Investment

The Macroeconomic Effects of Public Investment PDF Author: Mr.Abdul Abiad
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484361555
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 26

Book Description
This paper provides new evidence of the macroeconomic effects of public investment in advanced economies. Using public investment forecast errors to identify the causal effect of government investment in a sample of 17 OECD economies since 1985 and model simulations, the paper finds that increased public investment raises output, both in the short term and in the long term, crowds in private investment, and reduces unemployment. Several factors shape the macroeconomic effects of public investment. When there is economic slack and monetary accommodation, demand effects are stronger, and the public-debt-to-GDP ratio may actually decline. Public investment is also more effective in boosting output in countries with higher public investment efficiency and when it is financed by issuing debt.