IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3372.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Severe Fiscal Contractions be Expansionary? Tales of Two Small European Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Francesco Giavazzi
  • Marco Pagano

Abstract

According to conventional wisdom, a fiscal consolidation is likely to contract real aggregate demand. It has often been argued, however, that this conclusion is misleading as it neglects the role of expectations of future policy: if the fiscal consolidation is read by the private sector as a signal that the share of government spending in GDP is being permanently reduced, households will revise upwards their estimate of their permanent income, and will raise current and planned consumption. Only the empirical evidence can sort out which of these two contending views about fiscal policy is more appropriate -- i.e how often the contractionary effect of a fiscal consolidation prevails on its expansionary expectational effect. This paper brings new evidence to bear on this issue drawing on the European exercise in fiscal rectitude of the 1980s, and focusing, in particulars on its two most extreme cases -- Denmark and Ireland. We find that at least in the experience of these two countries the expectations' view has a serious claim to empirical relevance.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesco Giavazzi & Marco Pagano, 1990. "Can Severe Fiscal Contractions be Expansionary? Tales of Two Small European Countries," NBER Working Papers 3372, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3372
    Note: ITI IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3372.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barro, Robert J, 1981. "Output Effects of Government Purchases," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(6), pages 1086-1121, December.
    2. Aschauer, David Alan, 1985. "Fiscal Policy and Aggregate Demand," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(1), pages 117-127, March.
    3. Feldstein, Martin, 1982. "Government deficits and aggregate demand," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(1), pages 1-20.
    4. Jappelli, Tullio & Pagano, Marco, 1989. "Consumption and Capital Market Imperfections: An International Comparison," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1088-1105, December.
    5. Francesco Giavazzi & Marco Pagano, 1989. "Confidence Crises and Public Debt Management," NBER Working Papers 2926, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    7. Alesina, Alberto & Drazen, Allan, 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1170-1188, December.
    8. Ahmed, Shaghil, 1987. "Government spending, the balance of trade and the terms of trade in British history," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 195-220, September.
    9. Seater, John J. & Mariano, Roberto S., 1985. "New tests of the life cycle and tax discounting hypotheses," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 195-215, March.
    10. McAleese, Dermot & McCarthy, F. Desmond, 1989. "Adjustment and external shocks in Ireland," Policy Research Working Paper Series 262, The World Bank.
    11. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1985. "Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 223-247, April.
    12. Hayashi, Fumio, 1982. "The Permanent Income Hypothesis: Estimation and Testing by Instrumental Variables," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(5), pages 895-916, October.
    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. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption : Saving decisions : Testing the finite horizon model," Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    2. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1997_006 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption: Saving decisions: Testing the finite horizon model," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    4. Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Gregory Mankiw, N., 1999. "Government debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1615-1669, Elsevier.
    5. Pierre Duguay & Yves Rabeau, 1989. "Les effets macro-économiques de la politique budgétaire : de Keynes à la synthèse néo-classique," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 40(4), pages 597-620.
    6. António Afonso, 2008. "Euler testing Ricardo and Barro in the EU," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 5(16), pages 1-14.
    7. Brunila, Anne, 1996. "Fiscal policy and private consumption: Saving decisions: Evidence from Finland," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 28/1996, Bank of Finland.
    8. Khalid, Ahmed M., 1996. "Ricardian equivalence: Empirical evidence from developing economies," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 413-432, December.
    9. Islam, Roumeen & Wetzel, Deborah L., 1991. "The macroeconomics of public sector deficits : the case of Ghana," Policy Research Working Paper Series 672, The World Bank.
    10. B. Douglas Bernheim, 1987. "Ricardian Equivalence: An Evaluation of Theory and Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1987, Volume 2, pages 263-316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Agustín García & Julián Ramajo, "undated". "Los Efectos De La Política Fiscal Sobre El Consumo Privado: Nueva Evidencia Para El Caso Español," Working Papers 13-02 Classification-JEL , Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.
    12. Lorenzo Pozzi, 2003. "Tax Discounting in a High‐debt Economy," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(3), pages 261-282, July.
    13. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:5:y:2008:i:16:p:1-14 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Koumparoulis, Dimitrios, 2006. "Ευρωπαϊκή Δημοσιονομική Πολιτική Και Οικονομική Μεγέθυνση: Η Νεοκλασική Οικονομική Θεωρία Για Την Περίπτωση Της Ελλάδας [European Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth: The Neoclassical Economic Theory," MPRA Paper 44310, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1996_028 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Basil Dalamagas, 1994. "Testing the Debt-Illusion Hypothesis," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 45(4), pages 1079-1094.
    17. Brunila, Anne, 1996. "Fiscal policy and private consumption : Saving decisions : Evidence from Finland," Research Discussion Papers 28/1996, Bank of Finland.
    18. António Afonso, 2001. "Government indebtedness and european consumers behaviour," Working Papers Department of Economics 2001/12, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    19. Waqas, Muhamad & Awan, Masood Sarwar & Aslam, Muhammad Amir, 2011. "We are living on the cost of our children," MPRA Paper 32044, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:5:y:2004:i:16:p:1-10 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Hafedh Bouakez & Nooman Rebei, 2007. "Why does private consumption rise after a government spending shock?," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 40(3), pages 954-979, August.
    22. Roberto Ricciuti, 2003. "Assessing Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 55-78, February.
    23. Gogas, Periklis & Plakandaras, Vasilios & Papadimitriou, Theophilos, 2014. "Public debt and private consumption in OECD countries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 1-7.
    24. Sahar Bahmani, 2007. "Do budget deficits follow a linear or non-linear path?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 5(14), pages 1-9.

    More about this item

    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:nbr:nberwo:3372. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.