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Are Countercyclical Fiscal Policies Counterproductive?

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David B. Gordon
Eric M. Leeper

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Abstract

Economists generally believe that countercyclical fiscal policies have stabilizing effects that work through automatic stabilizers and discretionary actions. Analyses underlying this conventional wisdom focus on intratemporal margins: how employment and personal income respond in the short run to changes in government expenditures and taxes. But in economic downturns, countercyclical policies increase government indebtedness, raising future debt service obligations. These new expenditure commitments must be financed by some mix of higher taxes, lower spending, or higher money growth in the future. Expectations of how future policies will adjust change current savings rates and the efficacy of countercyclical policies. It is thus possible for responses to expected future policies to exacerbate and prolong recessions. This paper highlights these expectations effects. Connecting the theory to U.S. data we find: (1) through this expectations channel, countercyclical policies may create a business cycle when there would be no cycle in the absence of countercyclical policies; (2) nontrivial fractions of variation in investment and velocity can be explained by variation in macro policies alone---without any nonpolicy sources of fluctuation; and (3) persistence in key macro variables can arise solely from expectations of policy.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 11869.

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Date of creation: Dec 2005
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:11869

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy
E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization

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Cited by:
(explanations, 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.)

  1. Eric M. Leeper & Shu-Chun Susan Yang, 2006. "Dynamic Scoring: Alternative Financing Schemes," Caepr Working Papers 2006-022, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Economics Department, Indiana University Bloomington. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Gomes, Orlando, 2007. "On the stability of endogenous growth models: an evaluation of the agents’ response to output fluctuations," MPRA Paper 2891, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  3. Peter Claeys, 2007. "Estimating the effects of fiscal policy under the budget constraint," IREA Working Papers 200715, University of Barcelona, Research Institute of Applied Economics, revised Jul 2007. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. V. Anton Muscatelli & Tiziano Ropele & Patrizio Tirelli, 2004. "Macroeconomic Adjustment in the Euro-area: The Role of Fiscal Policy," Working Papers 2005_20, Department of Economics, University of Glasgow, revised May 2005. [Downloadable!]
  5. Ioana Moldovan, 2007. "Countercyclical Taxes in a Monopolistically Competitive Environment," Working Papers 2007_42, Department of Economics, University of Glasgow. [Downloadable!]
  6. Andrea Colciago & Anton Muscatelli & Tiziano Ropele & Patrizio Tirelli, 2006. "The Role of Fiscal Policy in a Monetary Union: Are National Automatic Stabilizers Effective?," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
  7. Anton Muscatelli & Patrizio Tirelli & Carmine Trecroci, 2004. "Can Fiscal Policy Help Macroeconomic Stabilisation? Evidence from a New Keynesian Model with Liquidity Constraints," CESifo Working Paper Series CESifo Working Paper No. , CESifo GmbH. [Downloadable!]
  8. V. Anton Muscatelli & Patrizio Tirelli, 2004. "Analyzing the Interaction of Monetary and Fiscal Policy: Does Fiscal Policy Play a Valuable Role in Stabilisation?," Working Papers 2005_17, Department of Economics, University of Glasgow, revised Jun 2005. [Downloadable!]
  9. V. Anton Muscatelli & Patrizio Tirelli & Carmine Trescroci, 2003. "Fiscal and Monetary policy Interactions in a New Keynesian Model with Liquidity Constraints," Working Papers 2005_19, Department of Economics, University of Glasgow, revised Apr 2005. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
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