Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

What are the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks?

Contents:

Author Info

  • Mountford, A.W.
  • Uhlig, H.F.H.V.S.

    (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research)

Abstract

We investigate the effects of fiscal policy surprises for US data, using vector autoregressions.We overcome the difficulties that changes in fiscal policy may manifest themselves in variables other than fiscal variables first and that fiscal variables may respond 'automatically' to business cycle conditions.We do so by using sign restrictions on the impulse responses as method of identification, extending Uhlig (1997), and by imposing orthogonality to business cycle shocks and monetary policy shocks.We find that controlling for the business cycle shock is important, but controlling for the monetary policy shock is not, that government spending shocks crowd out both residential and on-residential investment but do not reduce consumption, that a deficit spending cut stimulates the economy for the first 4 quarters but has a low median multiplier of 0:5, and that a surprise tax increase has a contractionary effect on output, consumption and investment.Our results differ from the benchmarks of Ricardian equivalence and tax smoothing, and are more in line with theories which allow for intergenerational redistribution with limits to the compensating effects of bequests.The best fiscal policy for stimulating the economy appears to be a deficit-financed tax cut.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://arno.uvt.nl/show.cgi?fid=4329
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research in its series Discussion Paper with number 2002-31.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 2002
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:dgr:kubcen:200231

Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://center.uvt.nl

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Mountford, A.W. & Uhlig, H.F.H.V.S., 2002. "What are the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks?," Discussion Paper 2002-31, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
  2. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Danny Quah, 1990. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances," NBER Working Papers 2737, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Hess Chung & Eric Leeper, 2007. "What Has Financed Government Debt?," Caepr Working Papers 2007-015, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Economics Department, Indiana University Bloomington.
  4. Sims, Christopher A, 1994. "A Simple Model for Study of the Determination of the Price Level and the Interaction of Monetary and Fiscal Policy," Economic Theory, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 381-99.
  5. Christopher A. Sims, 1986. "Are forecasting models usable for policy analysis?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Win, pages 2-16.
  6. Devereux, Michael B & Head, Allen C & Lapham, Beverly J, 1996. "Monopolistic Competition, Increasing Returns, and the Effects of Government Spending," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(2), pages 233-54, May.
  7. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1994. "What Ends Recessions?," NBER Working Papers 4765, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 1994. "What Ends Recessions?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1994, Volume 9, pages 13-80 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  8. Francesco Giavazzi & Tullio Jappelli & Marco Pagano, 1999. "Searching for Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Policy," CSEF Working Papers 16, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
  9. Gert Peersman, 2005. "What caused the early millennium slowdown? Evidence based on vector autoregressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 185-207.
  10. Harald Uhlig & Mathias Trabandt, 2009. "How Far are We from the Slippery Slope? The Laffer Curve Revisited," Working Papers 2009-005, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
  11. Wendy Edelberg & Martin Eichenbaum & Jonas D.M. Fisher, 1999. "Understanding the Effects of a Shock to Government Purchases," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 2(1), pages 166-206, January.
  12. Faust, Jon, 1998. "The robustness of identified VAR conclusions about money," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 207-244, December.
  13. Jordi Galí & J. David López-Salido & Javier Vallés, 2004. "Understanding the effects of government spending on consumption," Working Paper Series 339, European Central Bank.
  14. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1992. "Current Real-Business-Cycle Theories and Aggregate Labor-Market Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 430-50, June.
  15. Beaudry, Paul & Portier, Franck, 2003. "Stock Prices, News and Economic Fluctuations," IDEI Working Papers 158, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
  16. Francesco Giavazzi & Marco Pagano, 1990. "Can Severe Fiscal Contractions be Expansionary? Tales of Two Small European Countries," NBER Working Papers 3372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  17. Fatás, Antonio & Mihov, Ilian, 2001. "The Effects of Fiscal Policy on Consumption and Employment: Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 2760, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  18. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 1998. "Monetary Policy Shocks: What Have We Learned and to What End?," NBER Working Papers 6400, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  19. Martin Eichenbaum & Jonas Fisher, 2004. "Fiscal Policy in the Aftermath of 9/11," NBER Working Papers 10430, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  20. Carlo A. Favero, . "How do European monetary and fiscal authorities behave?," Working Papers 214, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
  21. Dedola, Luca & Neri, Stefano, 2007. "What does a technology shock do? A VAR analysis with model-based sign restrictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 512-549, March.
  22. Gali, Jordi, 1992. "How Well Does the IS-LM Model Fit Postwar U.S. Data," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 107(2), pages 709-38, May.
  23. Dungey, Mardi & Fry, Renée, 2009. "The identification of fiscal and monetary policy in a structural VAR," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1147-1160, November.
  24. repec:fth:coluec:754 is not listed on IDEAS
  25. Ramey, Valerie A. & Shapiro, Matthew D., 1998. "Costly capital reallocation and the effects of government spending," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 145-194, June.
  26. Giavazzi, Francesco & Jappelli, Tullio & Pagano, Marco, 2000. "Searching for non-linear effects of fiscal policy: Evidence from industrial and developing countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 44(7), pages 1259-1289, June.
  27. Craig Burnside & Martin Eichenbaum & Jonas Fisher, 2003. "Fiscal Shocks and Their Consequences," NBER Working Papers 9772, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  28. Fabio Canova & Gianni de Nicoló, 1999. "On the sources of business cycles in the G-7," Economics Working Papers 459, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Mar 2000.
  29. Zheng Liu & Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2007. "Expectation Effects of Regimes Shifts in Monetary Policy," Kiel Working Papers 1357, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
  30. Eric M. Leeper & Todd B. Walker & Shu-Chun Susan Yang, 2008. "Fiscal Foresight: Analytics and Econometrics," NBER Working Papers 14028, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  31. Andrew Mountford, 2005. "Leaning into the Wind: A Structural VAR Investigation of UK Monetary Policy," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 67(5), pages 597-621, October.
  32. Jon Faust, 1998. "The robustness of identified VAR conclusions about money," International Finance Discussion Papers 610, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  33. Ben S. Bernanke, 1986. "Alternative Explanations of the Money-Income Correlation," NBER Working Papers 1842, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  34. Eric M. Leeper & Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 1996. "What Does Monetary Policy Do?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(2), pages 1-78.
  35. Ben S. Bernanke & Ilian Mihov, 1995. "Measuring monetary policy," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 95-09, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
  36. Fabio Canova & Gianni De Nicolo, 2000. "Monetary disturbances matter for business fluctuations in the G-7," International Finance Discussion Papers 660, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  37. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2010. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 763-801, June.
  38. Fabio Canova & Evi Pappa, 2007. "Price Differentials in Monetary Unions: The Role of Fiscal Shocks," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 713-737, 04.
  39. Alberto Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 1995. "Fiscal Expansions and Fiscal Adjustments in OECD Countries," NBER Working Papers 5214, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  40. Canova, Fabio & Pina, Joaquim Pivis, 1999. "Monetary Policy Misspecification in VAR Models," CEPR Discussion Papers 2333, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  41. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization Of The Dynamic Effects Of Changes In Government Spending And Taxes On Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368, November.
  42. Favero, Carlo A., 2001. "Applied Macroeconometrics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198296850, September.
  43. Giavazzi, Francesco & Pagano, Marco, 1995. "Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Policy Changes: International Evidence and the Swedish Experience," CEPR Discussion Papers 1284, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  44. Scott, Alasdair, 2003. "APPLIED MACROECONOMETRICS Carlo A. Favero Oxford University Press, 2001," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(02), pages 313-315, April.
  45. Cochrane, John H, 1994. "Permanent and Transitory Components of GNP and Stock Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(1), pages 241-65, February.
  46. Luca Benati & Haroon Mumtaz, 2007. "U.S. evolving macroeconomic dynamics - a structural investigation," Working Paper Series 746, European Central Bank.
  47. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 1996. "Bayesian methods for dynamic multivariate models," Working Paper 96-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
  48. Roberto Perotti, 1999. "Fiscal Policy In Good Times And Bad," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 114(4), pages 1399-1436, November.
  49. Alesina, A. & Perotti, R., 1995. "Fiscal Expansions and Adjustments in OECD Countries," Discussion Papers 1995_25, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
  50. Renee Fry & Adrian Pagan, 2007. "Some Issues in Using Sign Restrictions for Identifying Structural VARs," NCER Working Paper Series 14, National Centre for Econometric Research.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Do Taxes Affect Economic Growth?
    by Matt Mitchell in Neighborhood Effects on 2012-09-21 20:59:33
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:dgr:kubcen:200231

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Corry Stuyts).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.