IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedlwp/94714.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Demand-Supply imbalance during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of fiscal policy

Author

Listed:

Abstract

To mitigate the health and economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide engaged in massive fiscal support programs. We show that generous fiscal support is associated with an increase in the demand for consumption goods during the pandemic, but industrial production did not adjust quickly enough to meet the sharp increase in demand. This imbalance between supply and demand across countries contributed to high inflation. Our findings suggest a sizable role for fiscal policy in affecting price stability, above and beyond what a monetary authority can do.

Suggested Citation

  • Francois de Soyres & Ana Maria Santacreu & Henry L. Young, 2022. "Demand-Supply imbalance during the COVID-19 pandemic: The role of fiscal policy," Working Papers 2022-019, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:94714
    DOI: 10.20955/wp.2022.019
    Note: Publisher DOI: https://doi.org/10.20955/r.105.21-50
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://s3.amazonaws.com/real.stlouisfed.org/wp/2022/2022-019.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.20955/wp.2022.019?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jesse LaBelle & Ana Maria Santacreu, 2022. "Supply Chain Disruptions During the COVID-19 Recession," Economic Synopses, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, pages 1-2, February.
    2. Jesse LaBelle & Ana Maria Santacreu, 2022. "Supply Chain Disruptions and Inflation During COVID-19," Economic Synopses, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue 11, pages 1-3, May.
    3. Francois de Soyres & Ana Maria Santacreu & Henry L. Young, 2022. "Fiscal policy and excess inflation during Covid-19: a cross-country view," FEDS Notes 2022-07-15-1, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Rebecca Freeman & Richard Baldwin, 2022. "Risks and Global Supply Chains: What We Know and What We Need to Know," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 14(1), pages 153-180, August.
    5. Raphael A. Auer & Andrei A. Levchenko & Philip Sauré, 2019. "International Inflation Spillovers through Input Linkages," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(3), pages 507-521, July.
    6. Jason Dunn & Fernando Leibovici, 2021. "Supply Chain Bottlenecks and Inflation: The Role of Semiconductors," Economic Synopses, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue 28, pages 1-2, December.
    7. Sims, Christopher A., 2011. "Stepping on a rake: The role of fiscal policy in the inflation of the 1970s," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 48-56, January.
    8. Jesse LaBelle & Ana Maria Santacreu, 2021. "Rethinking Global Value Chains During COVID-19: Part 1," Economic Synopses, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue 16, pages 1-2, July.
    9. Jesse LaBelle & Ana Maria Santacreu, 2021. "Rethinking Global Value Chains During COVID-19: Part 2," Economic Synopses, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue 17, pages 1-2, July.
    10. Valerie A. Ramey, 2011. "Identifying Government Spending Shocks: It's all in the Timing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 1-50.
    11. Jesse LaBelle & Ana Maria Santacreu, 2022. "Global Supply Chain Disruptions and Inflation During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 104(2), pages 78-91.
    12. Valerie A. Ramey & Sarah Zubairy, 2018. "Government Spending Multipliers in Good Times and in Bad: Evidence from US Historical Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 850-901.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cavallo, Alberto & Kryvtsov, Oleksiy, 2023. "What can stockouts tell us about inflation? Evidence from online micro data," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    2. Francesco Ferrante & Sebastian Graves & Matteo Iacoviello, 2023. "The Inflationary Effects of Sectoral Reallocation," International Finance Discussion Papers 1369, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Diego A. Comin & Robert C. Johnson & Callum J. Jones, 2023. "Supply Chain Constraints and Inflation," NBER Working Papers 31179, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Chen, Peng & Miao, Xinru, 2024. "Understanding the role of China's factors in international commodity price fluctuations: A perspective of monetary-fiscal policy interaction," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 1464-1483.
    5. Mary Amiti & Sebastian Heise & Fatih Karahan & Ayşegül Şahin, 2024. "Inflation Strikes Back: The Role of Import Competition and the Labor Market," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(1), pages 71-131.
    6. Ferrante, Francesco & Graves, Sebastian & Iacoviello, Matteo, 2023. "The inflationary effects of sectoral reallocation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(S), pages 64-81.

    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. Geiger, Martin & Zachariadis, Marios, 2022. "Consumers’ Updating, Policy Shocks, And Public Debt: An Empirical Assessment Of State Dependencies," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(8), pages 2104-2140, December.
    2. Ascari, Guido & Beck-Friis, Peder & Florio, Anna & Gobbi, Alessandro, 2023. "Fiscal foresight and the effects of government spending: It’s all in the monetary-fiscal mix," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 1-15.
    3. Rüth, Sebastian K., 2018. "Fiscal stimulus and systematic monetary policy: Postwar evidence for the United States," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 173(C), pages 92-96.
    4. Ji, Yangyang & Xiao, Wei, 2016. "Government spending multipliers and the zero lower bound," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 87-100.
    5. Miyazaki, Tomomi & Hiraga, Kazuki & Kozuka, Masafumi, 2024. "Stock market response to public investment under the zero lower bound: Cross-industry evidence from Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    6. Bredemeier, Christian & Juessen, Falko & Schabert, Andreas, 2015. "Fiscal Policy, Interest Rate Spreads, and the Zero Lower Bound," IZA Discussion Papers 8993, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    7. Gergely Ganics & Atsushi Inoue & Barbara Rossi, 2021. "Confidence Intervals for Bias and Size Distortion in IV and Local Projections-IV Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 307-324, January.
    8. De Graeve, Ferre & Queijo von Heideken, Virginia, 2015. "Identifying fiscal inflation," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 83-93.
    9. Joonkyu Choi & Veronika Penciakova & Felipe Saffie, 2021. "Political Connections, Allocation of Stimulus Spending, and the Jobs Multiplier," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2021-13, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    10. Markus Brueckner & Joaquin Vespignani, 2021. "COVID‐19 Infections and the Performance of the Stock Market: An Empirical Analysis for Australia," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 40(3), pages 173-193, September.
    11. Ruhollah Eskandari & Morteza Zamanian, 2023. "Heterogeneous responses to corporate marginal tax rates: Evidence from small and large firms," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(7), pages 1018-1047, November.
    12. Alisdair McKay & Christian K. Wolf, 2023. "What Can Time‐Series Regressions Tell Us About Policy Counterfactuals?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(5), pages 1695-1725, September.
    13. Mario Alloza, 2014. "Is Fiscal Policy More Effective in Uncertain Times or During Recessions?," Discussion Papers 1631, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Oct 2016.
    14. Konstantinou, Panagiotis Th. & Partheniou, Andromachi, 2021. "The Effects of Government Spending Over the Business Cycle: A Disaggregated Analysis for OECD and Non-OECD Countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 809-822.
    15. Ethan Ilzetzki, 2024. "Learning by Necessity: Government Demand, Capacity Constraints, and Productivity Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 114(8), pages 2436-2471, August.
    16. Cardi, Olivier & Restout, Romain, 2023. "Sectoral fiscal multipliers and technology in open economy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    17. Marfatia, Hardik A. & Gupta, Rangan & Miller, Stephen, 2020. "125 ​Years of time-varying effects of fiscal policy on financial markets," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 303-320.
    18. Boubaker, Sabri & Nguyen, Duc Khuong & Paltalidis, Nikos, 2018. "Fiscal policy interventions at the zero lower bound," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 297-314.
    19. Syed Hussain & Lin Liu, 2022. "Macroeconomic Effects of Government Spending Shocks: New Narrative Evidence from Canada," Working Papers 202201, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.
    20. Kim, Hyeongwoo & Zhang, Shuwei, 2018. "Understanding Why Fiscal Stimulus Can Fail through the Lens of the Survey of Professional Forecasters," MPRA Paper 89326, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; fiscal policy; inflation; supply chains;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance

    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:fip:fedlwp:94714. 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: Anna Oates (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.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.