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Macro fiscal policy in economic unions: states as agents

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  • Gerald A. Carlino
  • Robert P. Inman

Abstract

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was the US government?s fiscal response to the Great Recession. An important component of ARRA?s $796 billion proposed budget was $318 billion in fiscal assistance to state and local governments. We examine the historical experience of federal government transfers to state and local governments and their impact on aggregate GDP growth, recognizing that lower-tier governments are their own fiscal agents. The SVAR analysis explicitly incorporates federal intergovernmental transfers, disaggregated into project (e.g., infrastructure) aid and welfare aid, as separate fiscal policies in addition to federal government purchases and federal net taxes on household and firms. A narrative analysis provides an alternative identification strategy. To better understand the estimated aggregate effects of aid on the economy, we also estimate a behavioral model of state responses to such assistance. The analysis reaches three conclusions. First, aggregate federal transfers to state and local governments are less stimulative than are transfers to households and firms. It is important to evaluate the two policies separately. Second, within intergovernmental transfers, matching (price) transfers for welfare spending are more effective for stimulating GDP growth than are unconstrained (income) transfers for project spending. Matching aid is fully spent on welfare services or middle-class tax relief; half of project aid is saved and only slowly spent in future years. Third, simulations using the SVAR specification suggest ARRA assistance would have been 30 percent more effective in stimulating GDP growth had the share spent on government purchases and project aid been fully allocated to private sector tax relief and to matching aid to states for lower-income support.

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  • Gerald A. Carlino & Robert P. Inman, 2013. "Macro fiscal policy in economic unions: states as agents," Working Papers 13-40, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedpwp:13-40
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    Cited by:

    1. Bill Dupor & Peter B. McCrory, 2018. "A Cup Runneth Over: Fiscal Policy Spillovers from the 2009 Recovery Act," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1476-1508, June.
    2. Neville Francis & Laura E. Jackson & Michael T. Owyang, 2018. "Countercyclical Policy and the Speed of Recovery after Recessions," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(4), pages 675-704, June.
    3. Carolina Correa-Caro & Leandro Medina & Mr. Marcos Poplawski Ribeiro & Mr. Bennett W Sutton, 2018. "Fiscal Stimulus Impact on Firms' Profitability During the Global Financial Crisis," IMF Working Papers 2018/251, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Allan H. Meltzer, 2014. "Current Lessons from the Past: How the Fed Repeats Its History," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 34(3), pages 519-539, Fall.
    5. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, 2017. "Geographic Cross-Sectional Fiscal Multipliers: What Have We Learned?," Working Paper 458091, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    6. Peter McCrory & Bill Dupor, 2015. "Fiscal Policy Spillovers: Points of Employment to Places of Residence," 2015 Meeting Papers 47, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; Fiscal policy - United States;

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H39 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Other
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

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