Fiscal policy and business formation in open economies

According to empirical evidence, expansionary government spending policies increase consumption and the number of active firms in an economy and have large positive international spillover effects. Using a two-country sticky-price model with a variable number of producers, we analyze movements in output, consumption, extensive-margin investment and foreign output in response to government spending expansions. Our baseline results show that, first, there is divergence between consumption and firm entry; and second, spillovers are generally small. A large share of imports in government spending or a high trade elasticity can generate large spillovers in the model, but do not induce consumption-investment comovement. We propose useful government spending as a device to induce both large spillovers and positive consumption-investment comovement.