An impulse response is the dynamic average effect of an intervention across horizons. We use the well-known Kitagawa-Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to explore a response's heterogeneity over time and over states of the economy. This can be implemented with a simple extension to the usual local...

After the Global Financial Crisis a controversial rush to fiscal austerity followed in many countries. Yet research on the effects of austerity on macroeconomic aggregates was and still is unsettled, mired by the difficulty of identifying multipliers from observational data. This paper...

In response to the record-breaking COVID19 recession, many governments have adopted unprecedented fiscal stimuli. While countercyclical fiscal policy is effective in fighting conventional recessions, little is known about the effectiveness of fiscal policy in the current environment with...

A key issue in current research and policy is the size of fiscal multipliers when the economy is in recession. We provide three insights. First, using regime-switching models, we find large differences in the size of spending multipliers in recessions and expansions with fiscal policy being...

After the Global Financial Crisis a controversial rush to fiscal austerity followed in many countries. Yet research on the effects of austerity on macroeconomic aggregates was and still is unsettled, mired by the difficulty of identifying multipliers from observational data. This paper...

A central question in applied research is to estimate the effect of an exogenous intervention or shock on an outcome. The intervention can affect the outcome and controls on impact and over time. Moreover, there can be subsequent feedback between outcomes, controls and the intervention. Many of...

Identifying exogenous variation in monetary policy is crucial for investigating central bank policy transmission. Using newly-collected archival real-time data utilized by the Central Bank Council of the German Bundesbank, we identify unexpected changes in German monetary policy from 580 policy...

The Great Recession and the Global Financial Crisis have left many developed countries with low interest rates and high levels of public debt, thus limiting the ability of policymakers to fight the next recession. Whether new fiscal stimulus programs would be jeopardized by these already heavy...

We estimate local fiscal multipliers and spillovers for the United States using a rich dataset based on U.S. Department of Defense contracts and a variety of outcome variables relating to income and employment. We find strong positive spillovers across locations and industries. Both backward...

The fiscal "multiplier" measures how many additional dollars of output are gained or lost for each dollar of fiscal stimulus or contraction. In practice, the multiplier at any point in time depends on the monetary policy response and existing conditions in the economy. Using the IMF fiscal...