Bias and Sensitivity of Multipliers

Multipliers measure the derivatives of endogenous variables with respect to exogenous shocks and are functions of the structural parameters of an economic model. Substitution of the structural parameter estimates yields a so-called derived estimate for a multiplier or any reduced-form parameter. Derived estimates are biased. This paper presents first-order approximations to the biases and sensitivities of multipliers. The good performance of a flawed formula in input-output analysis is illuminated.