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A number of recent studies regress a “narratively” identified measure of a macroeconomic shock directly on an outcome variable. In this note, we argue that this approach can be viewed as the reduced-form regression of an instrumental variable approach in which the narrative time series is...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010948895
, the expenditure associated with military build-ups affects primarily the defense sector so that the resulting multiplier … powerful instrument for identifying government spending shocks. Furthermore, we show that the multiplier pertaining to non …-defense government spending is higher than the defense-spending multiplier estimated in the literature using military build-ups. …
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010877863
Ramey (2011a) and others argue that increases in government spending associated with wars and military build-ups constitute a good instrument for measuring the macroeconomic effects of fiscal shocks. We argue that this instrument has two important drawbacks: the composition of government...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010752160
In this paper we construct a stylised general equilibrium macromodel to show that demand led expansions may have unexpected effects when market imperfections lead to changes in labour productivity. We find some empirical support, from a number of European countries, for the main predictions of...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005181466
Over the next four decades, increasing old-age dependency ratios exert an enormous upward pressure on welfare spending in most developed countries. As this is mainly due to existing unfunded public pension schemes, many countries have embarked on far-reaching reforms in this area, strengthening...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10008534027
In the last two decades of the XIX century Italy became an industrial country. Historians maintain that this process was affected by the action of some interest groups that pursued both state protection from competition and specific public expenditure programs. Starting from the economic...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005013034
This paper surveys the empirical research on fiscal institutions of the last three decades. The main results are: (i) Constitutional or statutory fiscal limitations have in most cases proved to be effective in cutting down public expenditure, revenue, and debt. (ii) Budgetary proce-dures matter...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005094328
We address the problem of how to investigate whether economics, or politics, or both, matter in the explanation of public policy. The problem is first posed in a particular context by uncovering a political business cycle (using Canadian data for 130 years) and by taking up the challenge to make...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005181287
An economy with clean and dirty intermediate inputs may fall into a trap characterized by low environmental quality and low life expectancy, while the others converge to opposite steady states. We propose new strategies towards sustainable growth. They include: (i) taxes (subsidies) imposed on...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10010877654
The paper examines the monetary-fiscal interactions in a monetary union model with uncertainty due to imperfect central bank transparency. We first show that monetary uncertainty disciplines fiscal policymakers and thereby reduces taxes, average inflation and output distortions. However, as more...
Persistent link: https://www.econbiz.de/10005013047