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Fiscal Policy in the Bundestag: Textual Analysis and Macroeconomic Effects

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  • Latifi, Albina
  • Naboka-Krell, Viktoriia
  • Tillmann, Peter
  • Winker, Peter

Abstract

Fiscal policy is made in parliament. We go to the roots of changes of fiscal policy in Germany and use a novel data set on all parliamentary speeches in the Bundestag from 1960 to 2021. We propose an embedding-based approach, which allows the representation of words and documents in a shared vector space, in order to measure fiscal policy-related sentiment in parliamentary debates at a scale from contractionary to expansionary. For this purpose, a dictionary containing terms related to expansionary and contractionary policy measures is created. We put fiscal sentiment into a series of recursively-identified vector autoregressive (VAR) models to show that a change in fiscal sentiment causes a change in government spending and has strong effects on the macroeconomy. The results support the notion that the debate in parliament contains information for the identification of government spending shocks.
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Suggested Citation

  • Latifi, Albina & Naboka-Krell, Viktoriia & Tillmann, Peter & Winker, Peter, 2023. "Fiscal Policy in the Bundestag: Textual Analysis and Macroeconomic Effects," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277624, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc23:277624
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    JEL classification:

    • C89 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Other
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

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