Government Spending, Entry, And The Consumption Crowding‐In Puzzle

This article documents empirically that net firm entry robustly rises after a U.S. government spending expansion. We use this new finding to test the empirical validity of various model features that have been proposed to generate consumption crowding‐in after positive expenditure shocks. Endogenous‐entry models typically fail to generate the observed joint increase in consumption and entry. Model features that dampen the wealth effect, such as rule‐of‐thumb households or complementarity between labor and consumption in preferences, tend to reduce entry. We show that utility‐ or productivity‐enhancing public spending can reconcile the model with our documented fact and performs well empirically.