IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tch/wpaper/cep039.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fiscal Policy Uncertainty and its Effects on the Real Economy: German Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Robert L. Czudaj

    (Department of Economics, Chemnitz University of Technology)

  • Joscha Beckmann

    (University of Greifswald, Department o Economics)

Abstract

This paper introduces a new measure of fiscal policy uncertainty based on the disagreement among professional forecasters. We analyze different patterns of this measure for the German economy for a sample period from November 1995 to April 2018 and also use Italian data for comparison. Especially, we examine the impact of the introduction of the German ‘debt brake’ on fiscal policy uncertainty. Finally, we conduct an impulse response analysis to investigate the effectof fiscal policy uncertainty on the real economy and we provide robust evidence that fiscal policy uncertainty significantly decreases the growth rate of industrial production. The corresponding effect is robust to various sensitivity checks and exceeds the impact of a general measure of economic policy uncertainty. In general, the negative effect on the real economy might be explained by lower hiring and investment by firms, higher costs of financing due to risk premia and lower consumption spending as a result of precautionary savings.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert L. Czudaj & Joscha Beckmann, 2020. "Fiscal Policy Uncertainty and its Effects on the Real Economy: German Evidence," Chemnitz Economic Papers 039, Department of Economics, Chemnitz University of Technology, revised Oct 2020.
  • Handle: RePEc:tch:wpaper:cep039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/wirtschaft/vwl1/RePEc/download/tch/wpaper/CEP039_German.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2020
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Bloom, 2016. "Fluctuations in uncertainty," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 4.
    2. Mario Alloza, 2014. "Is Fiscal Policy More Effective in Uncertain Times or During Recessions?," Discussion Papers 1631, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Oct 2016.
    3. Czudaj, Robert L., 2020. "Is the negative interest rate policy effective?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 75-86.
    4. Susanto Basu & Brent Bundick, 2017. "Uncertainty Shocks in a Model of Effective Demand," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 937-958, May.
    5. Efrem Castelnuovo & Guay Lim, 2019. "What Do We Know About the Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Policy? A Brief Survey of the Literature on Fiscal Multipliers," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 52(1), pages 78-93, March.
    6. Jonas Dovern & Ulrich Fritsche & Jiri Slacalek, 2012. "Disagreement Among Forecasters in G7 Countries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1081-1096, November.
    7. Anzuini, Alessio & Rossi, Luca & Tommasino, Pietro, 2020. "Fiscal policy uncertainty and the business cycle: Time series evidence from Italy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    8. Berg, Tim Oliver, 2019. "Business Uncertainty And The Effectiveness Of Fiscal Policy In Germany," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 1442-1470, June.
    9. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    10. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Sims, Eric R., 2012. "Confidence and the transmission of government spending shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 235-249.
    11. Canova, Fabio & Nicolo, Gianni De, 2002. "Monetary disturbances matter for business fluctuations in the G-7," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1131-1159, September.
    12. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Pablo Guerrón-Quintana & Keith Kuester & Juan Rubio-Ramírez, 2015. "Fiscal Volatility Shocks and Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(11), pages 3352-3384, November.
    13. Castelnuovo, Efrem & Tran, Trung Duc, 2017. "Google It Up! A Google Trends-based Uncertainty index for the United States and Australia," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 149-153.
    14. R?diger Bachmann & Steffen Elstner & Eric R. Sims, 2013. "Uncertainty and Economic Activity: Evidence from Business Survey Data," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 217-249, April.
    15. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    16. Marco Del Negro & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2015. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy: A Corrigendum," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 82(4), pages 1342-1345.
    17. Born, Benjamin & Pfeifer, Johannes, 2014. "Policy risk and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 68-85.
    18. Robert J. Barro, 1996. "Reflections on Ricardian Equivalence," NBER Working Papers 5502, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. 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, Oxford University Press, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    20. Czudaj, Robert L., 2019. "Dynamics between trading volume, volatility and open interest in agricultural futures markets: A Bayesian time-varying coefficient approach," Econometrics and Statistics, Elsevier, vol. 12(C), pages 78-145.
    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. Joscha Beckmann & Robert L. Czudaj, 2023. "The role of expectations for currency crisis dynamics—The case of the Turkish lira," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 625-642, April.
    2. Beckmann, Joscha & Czudaj, Robert L., 2024. "Uncertainty Shocks and Inflation: The Role of Credibility and Expectation Anchoring," MPRA Paper 119971, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Niels Gillmann & Alexander Hilgenberg, 2021. "How to Empirically Measure Economic Uncertainty - A Presentation Using Germany as an Example," ifo Dresden berichtet, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 28(02), pages 24-29, April.
    4. Stavros P. Migkos & Damianos P. Sakas & Nikolaos T. Giannakopoulos & Georgios Konteos & Anastasia Metsiou, 2022. "Analyzing Greece 2010 Memorandum’s Impact on Macroeconomic and Financial Figures through FCM," Economies, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-19, July.
    5. Rongwu Zhang & Lan Luo & Jianjun Du, 2023. "The influence of fiscal policy uncertainty on corporate total factor productivity: Evidence from Chinese public companies," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(3), pages 532-554, July.

    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. Efrem Castelnuovo, 2022. "Uncertainty Before and During COVID-19: A Survey," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0279, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    2. Josué Diwambuena & Jean-Paul K. Tsasa, 2021. "The Real Effects of Uncertainty Shocks: New Evidence from Linear and Nonlinear SVAR Models," BEMPS - Bozen Economics & Management Paper Series BEMPS87, Faculty of Economics and Management at the Free University of Bozen.
    3. Alessio Anzuini & Luca Rossi, 2021. "Fiscal policy in the US: a new measure of uncertainty and its effects on the American economy," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(5), pages 2613-2634, November.
    4. Efrem Castelnuovo & Guay Lim, 2019. "What Do We Know About the Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Policy? A Brief Survey of the Literature on Fiscal Multipliers," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 52(1), pages 78-93, March.
    5. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2022_005 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Ambrocio, Gene, 2020. "Inflationary household uncertainty shocks," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 5/2020, Bank of Finland.
    7. Lien, Donald & Sun, Yuchen & Zhang, Chengsi, 2021. "Uncertainty, confidence, and monetary policy in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 1347-1358.
    8. Corinna Ghirelli & María Gil & Javier J. Pérez & Alberto Urtasun, 2021. "Measuring economic and economic policy uncertainty and their macroeconomic effects: the case of Spain," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 869-892, February.
    9. Ambrocio, Gene, 2020. "Inflationary household uncertainty shocks," Research Discussion Papers 5/2020, Bank of Finland.
    10. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87, April.
    11. Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Gabriela Nodari, 2014. "Uncertainty and Monetary Policy in Good and Bad Times," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0188, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    12. Caggiano, Giovanni & Castelnuovo, Efrem & Delrio, Silvia & Kima, Richard, 2021. "Financial uncertainty and real activity: The good, the bad, and the ugly," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    13. Bhanu Pratap & Nalin Priyaranjan, 2023. "Macroeconomic effects of uncertainty: a Google trends-based analysis for India," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(4), pages 1599-1625, October.
    14. Luca Gambetti & Dimitris Korobilis & John D. Tsoukalas & Francesco Zanetti, 2023. "Agreed and Disagreed Uncertainty," Working Paper series 23-01, Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis.
    15. Leduc, Sylvain & Liu, Zheng, 2016. "Uncertainty shocks are aggregate demand shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 20-35.
    16. Jerow, Sam & Wolff, Jonathan, 2022. "Fiscal policy and uncertainty," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    17. Alessio Anzuini & Luca Rossi, 2018. "Fiscal policy in the US: a new measure of uncertainty and its recent development," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1197, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    18. Basile, Roberto & Girardi, Alessandro, 2018. "Uncertainty and Business Cycle: A Review of the Literature and Some Evidence from the Spanish Economy/Incertidumbre y Ciclo Empresarial: Revisión de la literatura y evidencia en la economía española," Estudios de Economia Aplicada, Estudios de Economia Aplicada, vol. 36, pages 235-250, Enero.
    19. Luca Rossi, 2020. "Indicators of uncertainty: a brief user’s guide," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 564, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    20. Kim, Wongi, 2019. "Government spending policy uncertainty and economic activity: US time series evidence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-1.
    21. Eduardo de Sá Fortes Leitão Rodrigues, 2021. "Uncertainty and Effectiveness of Public Consumption," Working Papers REM 2021/0180, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Disagreement; Expectations; Fiscal policy; Survey data; Uncertainty; VAR;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

    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:tch:wpaper:cep039. 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: Christian Kulitza (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwtucde.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.