IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mie/wpaper/662.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Government Consumption and Investment: Does the Composition of Purchases Affect the Multiplier?

Author

Listed:
  • Christoph E. Boehm

    (University of Texas, Austin)

Abstract

I show that a large and conventional class of macroeconomic models predicts that short-lived government investment shocks have a much smaller fiscal multiplier than government consumption shocks. I test this prediction in a panel of OECD countries using real-time forecasts of government consumption and investment to purify changes in purchases of their predicted components. Consistent with theory, I estimate a government investment multiplier near zero and a government consumption multiplier of approximately 0.8. These findings suggest that fiscal stimulus packages which contain large government investment components may not be as effective at stimulating aggregate demand as commonly thought.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph E. Boehm, 2018. "Government Consumption and Investment: Does the Composition of Purchases Affect the Multiplier?," Working Papers 662, Research Seminar in International Economics, University of Michigan.
    • Handle: RePEc:mie:wpaper:662
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.fordschool.umich.edu/rsie/workingpapers/Papers651-675/r662.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "Measuring the Output Responses to Fiscal Policy," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-27, May.
    2. Karl Whelan, 2000. "A guide to the use of chain aggregated NIPA data," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-35, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Miles Kimball & Christopher House & Christoph Boehm & Robert Barsky, 2016. "Monetary Policy and Durable Goods," 2016 Meeting Papers 745, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. Julia K. Thomas, 2002. "Is Lumpy Investment Relevant for the Business Cycle?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(3), pages 508-534, June.
    5. Baxter, Marianne & King, Robert G, 1993. "Fiscal Policy in General Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 315-334, June.
    6. Andrew Mountford & Harald Uhlig, 2009. "What are the effects of fiscal policy shocks?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(6), pages 960-992.
    7. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, 2017. "Geographic Cross-Sectional Fiscal Multipliers: What Have We Learned?," Working Paper 458091, Harvard University OpenScholar.
    8. Sylvain Leduc & Daniel Wilson, 2013. "Roads to Prosperity or Bridges to Nowhere? Theory and Evidence on the Impact of Public Infrastructure Investment," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 89-142.
    9. Ethan Ilzetzki & Carmen M Reinhart & Kenneth S Rogoff, 2019. "Exchange Arrangements Entering the Twenty-First Century: Which Anchor will Hold?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 599-646.
    10. Aiyagari, S. Rao & Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1992. "The output, employment, and interest rate effects of government consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 73-86, October.
    11. Reinhart, Carmen, 2002. "A Modern History of Exchange Rate Arrangements: The Country Histories, 1946-2001," MPRA Paper 13191, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Raj Chetty & Adam Guren & Day Manoli & Andrea Weber, 2011. "Are Micro and Macro Labor Supply Elasticities Consistent? A Review of Evidence on the Intensive and Extensive Margins," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(3), pages 471-475, May.
    13. Susanto Basu & Pierre De Leo, 2016. "Should Central Banks Target Investment Prices?," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 910, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 04 May 2017.
    14. Hafedh Bouakez & Michel Guillard & Jordan Roulleau-Pasdeloup, 2017. "Public Investment, Time to Build, and the Zero Lower Bound," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 23, pages 60-79, January.
    15. Òscar Jordà, 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 161-182, March.
    16. Jason Alan Snyder & Ivo Welch, 2017. "Do Powerful Politicians Really Cause Corporate Downsizing?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(6), pages 2225-2231.
    17. Sanderson, Eleanor & Windmeijer, Frank, 2016. "A weak instrument F-test in linear IV models with multiple endogenous variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 212-221.
    18. Olivier Coibion & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "What Can Survey Forecasts Tell Us about Information Rigidities?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(1), pages 116-159.
    19. Aschauer, David Alan, 1989. "Does public capital crowd out private capital?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 171-188, September.
    20. Ilzetzki, Ethan & Mendoza, Enrique G. & Végh, Carlos A., 2013. "How big (small?) are fiscal multipliers?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 239-254.
    21. Ramey, Valerie A. & Shapiro, Matthew D., 1998. "Costly capital reallocation and the effects of government spending," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 145-194, June.
    22. Aschauer, David Alan, 1989. "Is public expenditure productive?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 177-200, March.
    23. Eden, Maya & Kraay, Aart, 2014. ""Crowding in"and the returns to government investment in low-income countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6781, The World Bank.
    24. Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, 2019. "Geographic Cross-Sectional Fiscal Spending Multipliers: What Have We Learned?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 11(2), pages 1-34, May.
    25. David Berger & Joseph Vavra, 2014. "Measuring How Fiscal Shocks Affect Durable Spending in Recessions and Expansions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 112-115, May.
    26. Lauren Cohen & Joshua Coval & Christopher Malloy, 2011. "Do Powerful Politicians Cause Corporate Downsizing?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(6), pages 1015-1060.
    27. Christophe Kamps, 2005. "The Dynamic Effects of Public Capital: VAR Evidence for 22 OECD Countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 12(4), pages 533-558, August.
    28. Albertini, Julien & Poirier, Arthur & Roulleau-Pasdeloup, Jordan, 2014. "The composition of government spending and the multiplier at the zero lower bound," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 31-35.
    29. Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 2011. "When Is the Government Spending Multiplier Large?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 78-121.
    30. Cogan, John F. & Cwik, Tobias & Taylor, John B. & Wieland, Volker, 2010. "New Keynesian versus old Keynesian government spending multipliers," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 281-295, March.
    31. Leeper, Eric M. & Walker, Todd B. & Yang, Shu-Chun S., 2010. "Government investment and fiscal stimulus," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(8), pages 1000-1012, November.
    32. Robert B. Barsky & Christopher L. House & Miles S. Kimball, 2007. "Sticky-Price Models and Durable Goods," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 984-998, June.
    33. Christopher E. Boehm, 2016. "Government Spending and Durable Goods," CESifo Working Paper Series 6244, CESifo.
    34. Pascal Michaillat, 2014. "A Theory of Countercyclical Government Multiplier," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 190-217, January.
    35. House, Christopher L., 2014. "Fixed costs and long-lived investments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 86-100.
    36. Robert E. Hall, 2009. "By How Much Does GDP Rise If the Government Buys More Output?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 40(2 (Fall)), pages 183-249.
    37. Lukas Vogel, 2007. "How do the OECD Growth Projections for the G7 Economies Perform?: A Post-Mortem," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 573, OECD Publishing.
    38. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    39. 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.
    40. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    41. Robert J. Barro & Charles J. Redlick, 2011. "Macroeconomic Effects From Government Purchases and Taxes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 51-102.
    42. Wataru Miyamoto & Thuy Lan Nguyen & Dmitriy Sergeyev, 2018. "Government Spending Multipliers under the Zero Lower Bound: Evidence from Japan," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 247-277, July.
    43. David Cashin & Takashi Unayama, 2016. "Measuring Intertemporal Substitution in Consumption: Evidence from a VAT Increase in Japan," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(2), pages 285-297, May.
    44. Aart Kraay, 2012. "How large is the Government Spending Multiplier? Evidence from World Bank Lending," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(2), pages 829-887.
    45. Emi Nakamura & J?n Steinsson, 2014. "Fiscal Stimulus in a Monetary Union: Evidence from US Regions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 753-792, March.
    46. Valerie A. Ramey, 2011. "Can Government Purchases Stimulate the Economy?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 673-685, September.
    47. Ludger Linnemann & Andreas Schabert, 2006. "Productive Government Expenditure In Monetary Business Cycle Models," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 53(1), pages 28-46, February.
    48. Ethan Ilzetzki & Carmen M Reinhart & Kenneth S Rogoff, 2019. "Exchange Arrangements Entering the Twenty-First Century: Which Anchor will Hold?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 599-646.
    49. Christoph Boehm & Nitya Pandalai Nayar, 2018. "Are supply curves convex? Implications for state-dependent responses to shocks," 2018 Meeting Papers 336, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    50. José Luis Montiel Olea & Carolin Pflueger, 2013. "A Robust Test for Weak Instruments," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 358-369, July.
    51. Christopher L. House & Matthew D. Shapiro, 2008. "Temporary Investment Tax Incentives: Theory with Evidence from Bonus Depreciation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 737-768, June.
    52. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1983. "Staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 383-398, September.
    53. Alfredo M. Pereira, 2000. "Is All Public Capital Created Equal?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(3), pages 513-518, August.
    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. Valerie A. Ramey, 2020. "The Macroeconomic Consequences of Infrastructure Investment," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Analysis and Infrastructure Investment, pages 219-268, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Valerie A. Ramey, 2019. "Ten Years after the Financial Crisis: What Have We Learned from the Renaissance in Fiscal Research?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 89-114, Spring.
    3. Eric Sims & Jonathan Wolff, 2018. "The Output And Welfare Effects Of Government Spending Shocks Over The Business Cycle," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 59(3), pages 1403-1435, August.
    4. Wataru Miyamoto & Thuy Lan Nguyen & Dmitriy Sergeyev, 2018. "Government Spending Multipliers under the Zero Lower Bound: Evidence from Japan," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 247-277, July.
    5. Kanazawa, Nobuyuki, 2021. "Public investment multipliers: Evidence from stock returns of the road pavement industry in Japan," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    6. Sheremirov, Viacheslav & Spirovska, Sandra, 2022. "Fiscal multipliers in advanced and developing countries: Evidence from military spending," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    7. Andrea Boitani & Salvatore Perdichizzi, 2018. "Public Expenditure Multipliers in recessions. Evidence from the Eurozone," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def068, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    8. Sylvain Leduc & Daniel Wilson, 2013. "Roads to Prosperity or Bridges to Nowhere? Theory and Evidence on the Impact of Public Infrastructure Investment," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(1), pages 89-142.
    9. Aart Kraay, 2014. "Government Spending Multipliers in Developing Countries: Evidence from Lending by Official Creditors," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 170-208, October.
    10. Hafedh Bouakez & Michel Guillard & Jordan Roulleau-Pasdeloup, 2017. "Public Investment, Time to Build, and the Zero Lower Bound," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 23, pages 60-79, January.
    11. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    12. Mathias Klein & Roland Winkler, 2021. "The government spending multiplier at the zero lower bound: International evidence from historical data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(6), pages 744-759, September.
    13. Axelle Ferriere & Gaston Navarro, 2013. "The Heterogeneous Effects of Government Spending: It's All About Taxes," Working Papers 13-18, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    14. Banerjee, Ryan & Zampolli, Fabrizio, 2019. "What drives the short-run costs of fiscal consolidation? Evidence from OECD countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 420-436.
    15. Jia, Bijie & Kim, Hyeongwoo, 2015. "Government Spending Shocks and Private Activity: The Role of Sentiments," MPRA Paper 66263, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Salvatore Perdichizzi, 2017. "Estimating Fiscal multipliers in the Eurozone. A Nonlinear Panel Data Approach," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def058, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    17. Stylianos Asimakopoulos & Marco Lorusso & Luca Pieroni, 2021. "Can public spending boost private consumption?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(3), pages 1275-1313, November.
    18. McCrory, Peter B, 2020. "Tradable Spillovers of Fiscal Policy: Evidence from the 2009 Recovery Act," Institute for Research on Labor and Employment, Working Paper Series qt04n482qf, Institute of Industrial Relations, UC Berkeley.
    19. Bredemeier, Christian & Juessen, Falko & Schabert, Andreas, 2022. "Why are fiscal multipliers moderate even under monetary accommodation?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    20. Javier Andrés & José Emilio Boscá & Javier Ferri, 2011. "Household Leverage and Fiscal Multipliers," Working Papers 1103, International Economics Institute, University of Valencia.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal multiplier; Durable goods; Investment; Government spending; Government investment; Government consumption;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:mie:wpaper:662. 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: FSPP Webmaster (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/riumius.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.