This paper empirically studies the effects of fiscal policy shocks on private consumption. Further, it tries to determine if the initial conditions of the economy, such as the financing needs of the government or previous fiscal deficits, affect that relationship. We use yearly data between 1970...

This paper surveys the empirical research on fiscal policy analysis based on real-time data. This literature can be broadly divided in three groups that focus on: (1) the statistical properties of Revisions in fiscal data; (2) the political and institutional determinants of projection errors by...

The objective of this study is to use both static and dynamic frameworks to compare the benefits that immigrants draw from the public system with their contributions through the taxes that they pay. The main conclusion of this article is that the impact of immigration on welfare systems is weak....

This paper provides empirical evidence showing that smaller countries tend to have more volatile government consumption for a sample of 160 countries from 1960 to 2000. The analysis also shows that country size is negatively related to the discretionary part of government consumption and to the...

In this paper we argue that any assessment on the intentional stance of fiscal policy should be based upon all the information available to policymakers at the time of fiscal planning. In particular, real-time data on the discretionary fiscal policy “instrument”, the structural primary...

This paper uses a stratified sample of firms across OECD economies over the period 1996-2004 to analyse the effects of corporate taxes on productivity and investment. Applying a differences-in-differences estimation strategy which exploits differential effects of corporate taxes on firms with...

In this paper, we study the effects of fiscal policy during different fiscal policy regimes. More specifically, we investigate how different factors, such as size, duration and composition of fiscal changes, can alter the effects of fiscal policy on private consumption. Using an unbalanced panel...

We estimate a so called common trends model of federal taxes and spending in the U.S.. Using dates on presidential terms as well as the NBER business cycle, we are able to interpret the estimated permanent shock as being of structural policy origin and the transitory shock as being of (to...