IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cdh/commen/412.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

User Discretion Advised: Fiscal Consolidation and the Recovery

Author

Listed:
  • William Scarth

Abstract

Since the financial crisis in 2008, controversy has existed over whether governments should use fiscal policy in an attempt to stimulate economic activity, or whether fiscal consolidation is preferred. Those who call for continued stimulation focus on how slow and incompletely shared our recovery has been, while those favouring austerity argue that postponement of deficit and debt reduction retards business expansion, thereby hurting the recovery. This study evaluates the many strands of this fiscal policy debate, and applies the lessons to the decisions currently facing the federal and Ontario governments.

Suggested Citation

  • William Scarth, 2014. "User Discretion Advised: Fiscal Consolidation and the Recovery," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 412, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdh:commen:412
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cdhowe.org/user-discretion-advised-fiscal-consolidation-and-recovery
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher Erceg & Jesper Lindé, 2014. "Is There A Fiscal Free Lunch In A Liquidity Trap?," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(1), pages 73-107, February.
    2. Arman Mansoorian & Mohammed Mohsin, 2004. "Monetary policy in a cash-in-advance economy: employment, capital accumulation, and the term structure of interest rates," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 37(2), pages 336-352, May.
    3. Fernández-Villaverde, Jesús & Gordon, Grey & Guerrón-Quintana, Pablo & Rubio-Ramírez, Juan F., 2015. "Nonlinear adventures at the zero lower bound," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 182-204.
    4. Anonymous, 1962. "International Monetary Fund," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(1), pages 230-231, January.
    5. Congressional Budget Office, 2011. "Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update," Reports 41586, Congressional Budget Office.
    6. Christiane Nickel & Andreas Tudyka, 2014. "Fiscal Stimulus in Times of High Debt: Reconsidering Multipliers and Twin Deficits," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 46(7), pages 1313-1344, October.
    7. Congressional Budget Office, 2011. "Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update," Reports 41586, Congressional Budget Office.
    8. Congressional Budget Office, 2011. "Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update," Reports 41586, Congressional Budget Office.
    9. Wallace E. Oates, 1968. "The Theory of Public Finance in a Federal System," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 1(1), pages 37-54, February.
    10. Anonymous, 1962. "International Monetary Fund," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(4), pages 876-878, October.
    11. Steven Ambler, 2014. "Price-Level Targeting: A Post-Mortem?," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 400, February.
    12. Arman Mansoorian & Mohammed Mohsin, 2004. "Monetary policy in a cash‐in‐advance economy: employment, capital accumulation, and the term structure of interest rates," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 37(2), pages 336-352, May.
    13. repec:cbo:report:415867 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. John B. Taylor, 2000. "Reassessing Discretionary Fiscal Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 21-36, Summer.
    15. repec:cbo:report:415866 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Karel R. S. M. Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2014. "Fiscal Policy in an Expectations-Driven Liquidity Trap," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 81(4), pages 1637-1667.
    17. Congressional Budget Office, 2011. "Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update," Reports 41586, Congressional Budget Office.
    18. Paul R. Masson, 2013. "The Dangers of an Extended Period of Low Interest Rates: Why the Bank of Canada Should Start Raising Them Now," C.D. Howe Institute Commentary, C.D. Howe Institute, issue 381, May.
    19. Congressional Budget Office, 2011. "Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update," Reports 41586, Congressional Budget Office.
    20. J. Bradford DeLong & Lawrence H. Summers, 2012. "Fiscal Policy in a Depressed Economy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 43(1 (Spring), pages 233-297.
    21. repec:cbo:report:415865 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Congressional Budget Office, 2011. "Budget and Economic Outlook: An Update," Reports 41586, Congressional Budget Office.
    23. Anonymous, 1962. "International Monetary Fund," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 16(3), pages 619-631, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Sophia Chen & Estelle P. Dauchy, 2017. "Tax‐Adjusted q Model with Intangible Assets: Theory and Evidence from Temporary Investment Tax Incentives," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 83(4), pages 972-992, April.
    2. Mary C. Daly & Bast Hobijn & Ayşeqül Şahin & Robert G. Valletta, 2012. "Rynki pracy w modelu poszukiwań i dopasowań: czy naturalna stopa bezrobocia rzeczywiście wzrosła?," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 11-12, pages 147-172.
    3. Mary Daly & Bart Hobijn & Aysegul Sahin & Robert Valletta, 2011. "A Rising Natural Rate of Unemployment: Transitory or Permanent?," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 11-160/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Dimitri B. Papadimitriou & Greg Hannsgen & Gennaro Zezza, 2011. "Is the Recovery Sustainable?," Economics Strategic Analysis Archive sa_dec_11, Levy Economics Institute.
    5. Romain Bouis & Ane Kathrine Christensen & Boris Cournède, 2013. "Deleveraging: Challenges, Progress and Policies," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1077, OECD Publishing.
    6. repec:bpj:bejmac:v:12:y:2012:i:3:p:10:n:10 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Salvatore Perdichizzi, 2017. "Estimating Fiscal multipliers in the Eurozone. A Nonlinear Panel Data Approach," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def058, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    8. Andrea Boitani & Salvatore Perdichizzi, 2018. "Public Expenditure Multipliers in recessions. Evidence from the Eurozone," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def068, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    9. Michael Elsby & Bart Hobijn & Ayşegül Şahin & Robert G. Valletta, 2011. "The labor market in the Great Recession: an update," Working Paper Series 2011-29, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    10. Kevin L. Kliesen & Daniel L. Thornton, 2012. "How good are the government’s deficit and debt projections and should we care?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 94(Jan), pages 21-39.
    11. Lucian Croitoru, 2018. "How Countries’ Different Attitudes towards Inflation can thwart the European Dream," Romanian Economic Journal, Department of International Business and Economics from the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, vol. 21(70), pages 2-41, December.
    12. Veronika Šuliková & Anna Tykhonenko, 2017. "The Impact Of Public Debt On The Twin Imbalances In Europe: A Threshold Model," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 62(213), pages 27-44, April - J.
    13. Dragan Tevdovski & Goran Petrevski & Jane Bogoev, 2019. "The effects of macroeconomic policies under fixed exchange rates: A Bayesian VAR analysis," Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 2138-2160, January.
    14. Dirk Steffen & Ingo Pitterle, 2004. "Spillover Effects of Fiscal Policy Under Flexible Exchange Rates," Econometric Society 2004 Australasian Meetings 286, Econometric Society.
    15. Mădălin Viziniuc, 2017. "Potential Gains from Cooperation Between Monetary and Macroprudential Policies: The Case of an Emerging Economy," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(5), pages 420-452, September.
    16. Hafedh Bouakez & Michel Guillard & Jordan Roulleau-Pasdeloup, 2017. "Public Investment, Time to Build, and the Zero Lower Bound," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 23, pages 60-79, January.
    17. Edward Ghartey, 2006. "Exchange Pressure, Sterilized Intervention and Monetary Policy in Ghana," EcoMod2006 272100031, EcoMod.
    18. Fotiou, Alexandra & Shen, Wenyi & Yang, Shu-Chun S., 2020. "The fiscal state-dependent effects of capital income tax cuts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 117(C).
    19. Jyh-Lin Wu, 1994. "Fiscal announcements and real exchange rate dynamics," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 177-190, March.
    20. Amir H. Mozayani & Sanaz Parvizi, 2016. "Exchange Rate Misalignment in Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC): Focusing on Iran," Iranian Economic Review (IER), Faculty of Economics,University of Tehran.Tehran,Iran, vol. 20(2), pages 261-276, Spring.
    21. Michael Michaely, 1971. "An Over-all View of Policy Patterns," NBER Chapters, in: The Responsiveness of Demand Policies to Balance of Payments: Postwar Patterns, pages 30-70, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal Policy and Tax Competitiveness;

    JEL classification:

    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • 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; Treasury Policy
    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus

    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:cdh:commen:412. 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: Kristine Gray (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cdhowca.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.