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Do Government Purchases Affect Unemployment?

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  • Steinar Holden
  • Victoria Sparrman

Abstract

We investigate empirically the effect of government purchases on unemployment in 20 OECD countries, for the period 1960-2007. Compared to earlier studies we use a data set with more variation in unemployment, and which allows for controlling for a host of factors that influence the effect of government purchases. We find that increased government purchases lead to lower unemployment; an increase equal to one percent of GDP reduces un-employment by 0.2 percentage point in the same year. The effect is greater in downturns than in booms, and also greater under a fixed exchange rate regime than under a floating regime.

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  • Steinar Holden & Victoria Sparrman, 2011. "Do Government Purchases Affect Unemployment?," CESifo Working Paper Series 3482, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3482
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    2. Michaillat, Pascal, 2011. "Fiscal Multipliers Over the Business Cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 8610, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
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    5. Bjorn Dapi, 2020. "Wage Cyclicality and Composition Bias in the Norwegian Economy," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(4), pages 1403-1430, October.
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    7. Nargiza Alymkulova & Nurlan Atabaev & Junus Ganiev, 2016. "Var — analysis of global financial economic crisis impact on public budget and unemployment: evidence from the economy of the Kyrgyz republic," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(4), pages 1090-1101.
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    9. Haraldsen, Kristine Wika & Ragnar, Nymoen & Sparrman, Victoria, 2019. "Labour market institutions, shocks and the employment rate," Memorandum 6/2019, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    10. Alymkulova Nargiza Bakytovna & Atabaev Nurlan Uzgenovich & Ganiev Junus Mashrapovich, 2016. "Var - analysis of Global financial economic crisis impact on public budget and unemployment: evidence from the economy of the Kyrgyz Republic," Экономика региона, CyberLeninka;Федеральное государственное бюджетное учреждение науки «Институт экономики Уральского отделения Российской академии наук», vol. 12(4), pages 1090-1101.
    11. Aursland, Thor Andreas & Frankovic, Ivan & Kanik, Birol & Saxegaard, Magnus, 2020. "State-dependent fiscal multipliers in NORA - A DSGE model for fiscal policy analysis in Norway," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 321-353.
    12. Kristine Wika Haraldsen & Ragnar Nymoen & Victoria Sparrman, 2019. "Labour market institutions, shocks and the employment rate," Discussion Papers 901, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    fiscal policy; unemployment;

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General

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