IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/zewpbs/22019.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Slow recoveries through fiscal austerity: New insights in the effects of fiscal austerity

Author

Listed:
  • Bianchi, Francesco
  • Comin, Diego
  • Kung, Howard
  • Kind, Thilo
  • Matusche, Alexander

Abstract

Several European countries such as Spain, Portugal, and Greece implemented austerity programs to cope with the government-debt crisis in the aftermath of the Great Recession: They increased taxes on consumption, labour, and capital and reduced government expenditures to prevent a large increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio. Such policies impose a greater tax burden on the economy which distorts labour supply and investment. We argue that these additional tax distortions make it less attractive for firms to invest in adopting new technologies. New insights from the FRAME project show that fiscal austerity has severe negative consequences for productivity and economic growth in the medium-run and can lead to slow recoveries. Further, austerity may exacerbate existing market failures associated with investment in research and development (R&D) and technology adoption. Beyond its well-known impact on aggregate demand fiscal austerity has a negative effect on future economic growth and productivity growth and hence also on the supply side. Fiscal consolidation is desirable only if it enables a quick reduction of the cost of financing debt but this is unlikely.

Suggested Citation

  • Bianchi, Francesco & Comin, Diego & Kung, Howard & Kind, Thilo & Matusche, Alexander, 2019. "Slow recoveries through fiscal austerity: New insights in the effects of fiscal austerity," ZEW policy briefs 2/2019, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:zewpbs:22019
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/200172/1/1667903462.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "Measuring the Output Responses to Fiscal Policy," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-27, May.
    2. Aghion, Philippe & Angeletos, George-Marios & Banerjee, Abhijit & Manova, Kalina, 2010. "Volatility and growth: Credit constraints and the composition of investment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 246-265, April.
    3. Bianchi, Francesco & Kung, Howard & Morales, Gonzalo, 2019. "Growth, slowdowns, and recoveries," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 47-63.
    4. Krieger, Bastian & Licht, Georg & Pellens, Maikel, 2018. "New perspectives in European innovation policy," ZEW policy briefs 7/2018, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Philippe Aghion & Emmanuel Farhi & Enisse Kharroubi, 2012. "Monetary Policy, Liquidity, and Growth," NBER Working Papers 18072, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Gadi Barlevy, 2004. "The Cost of Business Cycles Under Endogenous Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 964-990, September.
    7. Diego Comin & Martí Mestieri, 2018. "If Technology Has Arrived Everywhere, Why Has Income Diverged?," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 137-178, July.
    8. European Commission, 2012. "Tax reforms in EU Member States - Tax policy challenges for economic growth and fiscal sustainability – 2012 Report," Taxation Papers 34, Directorate General Taxation and Customs Union, European Commission.
    9. Comin, D. & Hobijn, B., 2004. "Cross-country technology adoption: making the theories face the facts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 39-83, January.
    10. Gadi Barlevy, 2007. "On the Cyclicality of Research and Development," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(4), pages 1131-1164, September.
    11. Emi Nakamura & J?n Steinsson, 2014. "Fiscal Stimulus in a Monetary Union: Evidence from US Regions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 753-792, March.
    12. Pontus Rendahl, 2016. "Fiscal Policy in an Unemployment Crisis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(3), pages 1189-1224.
    13. Comin, Diego & Licht, Georg & Pellens, Maikel & Schubert, Torben, 2018. "Do Companies Benefit from Public Research Organizations? The Impact of the Fraunhofer Society in Germany," Papers in Innovation Studies 2018/7, Lund University, CIRCLE - Centre for Innovation Research.
    14. Jerzmanowski, Michal, 2007. "Total factor productivity differences: Appropriate technology vs. efficiency," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 2080-2110, November.
    15. Min Ouyang, 2011. "On the Cyclicality of R&D," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 93(2), pages 542-553, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Valerie Cerra & Antonio Fatás & Sweta C. Saxena, 2023. "Hysteresis and Business Cycles," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 61(1), pages 181-225, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gianluca Benigno & Luca Fornaro, 2018. "Stagnation Traps," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 85(3), pages 1425-1470.
    2. Garga, Vaishali & Singh, Sanjay R., 2021. "Output hysteresis and optimal monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 871-886.
    3. Krieger, Bastian & Licht, Georg & Pellens, Maikel, 2018. "New perspectives in European innovation policy," ZEW policy briefs 7/2018, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    4. Schmitz, Tom, 2021. "Endogenous growth, firm heterogeneity and the long-run impact of financial crises," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    5. Mand, Matthias, 2019. "On the cyclicality of R&D activities," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 38-58.
    6. Ferraro, Domenico, 2017. "Volatility and slow technology diffusion," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 18-37.
    7. Barbara Annicchiarico & Alessandra Pelloni, 2014. "Productivity growth and volatility: how important are wage and price rigidities?," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 66(1), pages 306-324, January.
    8. Lee, Dongyeol, 2016. "Role of R&D in the productivity growth of Korean industries: Technology gap and business cycle," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 31-45.
    9. Männasoo, Kadri & Meriküll, Jaanika, 2020. "Credit constraints and R&D over the boom and bust: Firm-level evidence from Central and Eastern Europe," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 44(2).
    10. Buchheim, Lukas & Watzinger, Martin & Wilhelm, Matthias, 2020. "Job creation in tight and slack labor markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 126-143.
    11. Buchheim, Lukas & Watzinger, Martin, 2017. "The Employment Effects of Countercyclical Infrastructure Investments," Discussion Papers in Economics 34877, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    12. Silvestri, Daniela & Riccaboni, Massimo & Della Malva, Antonio, 2018. "Sailing in all winds: Technological search over the business cycle," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(10), pages 1933-1944.
    13. Grimm, Niklas & Laeven, Luc & Popov, Alexander, 2021. "Quantitative easing and corporate innovation," Working Paper Series 2615, European Central Bank.
    14. Bianchi, Francesco & Kung, Howard & Morales, Gonzalo, 2019. "Growth, slowdowns, and recoveries," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 47-63.
    15. Hud, Martin & Hussinger, Katrin, 2015. "The impact of R&D subsidies during the crisis," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(10), pages 1844-1855.
    16. Dell'Erba, Salvatore & Koloskova, Ksenia & Poplawski-Ribeiro, Marcos, 2018. "Medium-term fiscal multipliers during protracted economic contractions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 35-52.
    17. Zeynep Kabukcuoglu, 2019. "The cyclical behavior of R&D investment during the Great Recession," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(1), pages 301-323, January.
    18. Hud, Martin & Rammer, Christian, 2014. "FuE- und Innovationsausgaben während der Krise: Strategien zur Sicherung des Innovationserfolgs," ZEW Dokumentationen 14-03, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    19. Bernhard Dachs & Martin Hud & Christian Köhler & Bettina Peters, 2016. "Employment Effects of Innovations over the Business Cycle: Firm-Level Evidence from European Countries," DEM Discussion Paper Series 16-20, Department of Economics at the University of Luxembourg.
    20. Norman H. Sedgley & John D. Burger & Kerry M. Tan, 2019. "The symmetry and cyclicality of R&D spending in advanced economies," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(5), pages 1811-1828, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:zewpbs:22019. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zemande.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.