IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/nbr/nberch/11970.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes versus Spending

In: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 24

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Alesina
  • Silvia Ardagna

Abstract

We examine the evidence on episodes of large stances in fiscal policy, both in cases of fiscal stimuli and in that of fiscal adjustments in OECD countries from 1970 to 2007. Fiscal stimuli based upon tax cuts are more likely to increase growth than those based upon spending increases. As for fiscal adjustments, those based upon spending cuts and no tax increases are more likely to reduce deficits and debt over GDP ratios than those based upon tax increases. In addition, adjustments on the spending side rather than on the tax side are less likely to create recessions. We confirm these results with simple regression analysis.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna, 2010. "Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes versus Spending," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 24, pages 35-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:11970
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c11970.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. von Hagen, Jurgen & Hughes Hallett, Andrew & Strauch, Rolf, 2002. "Budgetary Consolidation in Europe: Quality, Economic Conditions, and Persistence," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 512-535, December.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna, 1998. "Tales of fiscal adjustment," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 13(27), pages 488-545.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna & Roberto Perotti & Fabio Schiantarelli, 2002. "Fiscal Policy, Profits, and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 571-589, June.
    4. Alesina, Alberto & Perotti, Roberto, 1997. "The Welfare State and Competitiveness," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 921-939, December.
    5. 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.
    6. C. John McDermott & Robert F. Wescott, 1996. "An Empirical Analysis of Fiscal Adjustments," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 43(4), pages 725-753, December.
    7. Francesco Giavazzi & Marco Pagano, 1990. "Can Severe Fiscal Contractions Be Expansionary? Tales of Two Small European Countries," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1990, Volume 5, pages 75-122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Philippe Aghion & Alberto Alesina & Francesco Trebbi, 2004. "Endogenous Political Institutions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(2), pages 565-611.
    9. Ardagna, Silvia, 2004. "Fiscal Stabilizations: When Do They Work and Why," Scholarly Articles 2580047, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    10. Ardagna, Silvia, 2004. "Fiscal stabilizations: When do they work and why," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1047-1074, October.
    11. Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti & Roberto Perotti & Massimo Rostagno, 2002. "Electoral Systems and Public Spending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 609-657.
    12. Sutherland, Alan, 1997. "Fiscal crises and aggregate demand: can high public debt reverse the effects of fiscal policy?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 147-162, August.
    13. Alesina, Alberto & Drazen, Allan, 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1170-1188, December.
    14. 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.
    15. Bertola, Giuseppe & Drazen, Allan, 1993. "Trigger Points and Budget Cuts: Explaining the Effects of Fiscal Austerity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(1), pages 11-26, March.
    16. Lambertini, Luisa & Jose Tavares, 2002. "Exchange rates and fiscal adjustments: evidence from the OECD and implications for EMU," Nova SBE Working Paper Series wp412, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Nova School of Business and Economics.
    17. repec:hrv:faseco:3353756 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Alberto Alesina & Roberto Perotti & José Tavares, 1998. "The Political Economy of Fiscal Adjustments," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(1), pages 197-266.
    19. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Stanley Fischer (ed.), 1990. "NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1990," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262521555, December.
    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. Ant�nio Afonso, 2010. "Expansionary fiscal consolidations in Europe: new evidence," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(2), pages 105-109, January.
    2. Hüseyin ŞEN & Ayşe KAYA, 2017. "Mali Konsolidasyon Büyüme ve İstihdam için Bir Çıpa mı, Mali Tuzak mı? Teorik ve Ampirik Literatür Temelli Bir Analiz," Sosyoekonomi Journal, Sosyoekonomi Society, issue 25(34).
    3. Yang, Weonho & Fidrmuc, Jan & Ghosh, Sugata, 2015. "Macroeconomic effects of fiscal adjustment: A tale of two approaches," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 31-60.
    4. Afonso, António & Jalles, João Tovar, 2014. "Assessing fiscal episodes," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 255-270.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna & Roberto Perotti & Fabio Schiantarelli, 2002. "Fiscal Policy, Profits, and Investment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(3), pages 571-589, June.
    6. Paweł Borys & Piotr Ciżkowicz & Andrzej Rzońca, 2014. "Panel Data Evidence on the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks in the EU New Member States," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 35, pages 189-224, June.
    7. Wissem Khanfir, 2019. "Keynesian or Non-keynesian Effects of Fiscal Policy Changes: the Case of Tunisia," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 10(1), pages 335-347, March.
    8. F. Heylen & A. Hoebeeck & T. Buyse, 2011. "Fiscal consolidation, institutions and institutional reform: a multivariate analysis of public debt dynamics," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 11/763, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    9. Kleis, Mischa & Moessinger, Marc-Daniel, 2016. "The long-run effect of fiscal consolidation on economic growth: Evidence from quantitative case studies," ZEW Discussion Papers 16-047, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, revised 2016.
    10. Neicheva, Maria, 2007. "Non-Keynesian effects of Government Spending: Some implications for the Stability and Growth Pact," MPRA Paper 5277, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Christoph A. Schaltegger & Martin Weder, 2014. "Fiscal adjustment and the costs of public debt service: evidence from OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(22), pages 2593-2610, August.
    12. Philip Arestis & Ayşe Kaya & Hüseyin Şen, 2018. "Does fiscal consolidation promote economic growth and employment? Evidence from the PIIGGS countries," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 15(3), pages 289-312, November.
    13. Schaltegger, Christoph A. & Feld, Lars P., 2009. "Are fiscal adjustments less successful in decentralized governments?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 115-123, March.
    14. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna & Francesco Trebbi, 2006. "Who Adjusts and When?The Political Economy of Reforms," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 53(si), pages 1-1.
    15. Bardaka, Ioanna & Bournakis, Ioannis & Kaplanoglou, Georgia, 2021. "Total factor productivity (TFP) and fiscal consolidation: How harmful is austerity?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 908-922.
    16. Wissem Khanfir, 2016. "Threshold effect of fiscal policy on private consumption : Evidence from Tunisia," Romanian Economic Journal, Department of International Business and Economics from the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, vol. 18(59), pages 95-110, March.
    17. António Afonso, 2007. "Expansionary fiscal consolidations in Europe: part of conventional wisdom?," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2006 50, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    18. Christoph A. Schaltegger & Martin Weder, 2010. "Are Fiscal Adjustments Bad for Investment?," CREMA Working Paper Series 2010-17, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    19. Ardagna, Silvia, 2004. "Fiscal stabilizations: When do they work and why," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1047-1074, October.
    20. Ardagna, Silvia, 2009. "Financial markets' behavior around episodes of large changes in the fiscal stance," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 37-55, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes versus Spending (Tax Policy and the Economy 2010) in ReplicationWiki

    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:nbr:nberch:11970. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.