This paper considers budget expansions and adjustments in OECD countries in the last three decades. Our main results are: i) on average fiscal expansions are the results of increases in expenditures, particularly of transfer programs, while contractions are typically due to tax increases; ii)...

This paper reports on the latest update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2007: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence/Terrorism,...

The Worldwide Governance Indicators, reporting estimates of six dimensions of governance for over 200 countries between 1996 and 2005, have become widely used among policymakers and academics. They have also attracted some explicit written criticisms. In this short paper the authors synthesize...

This paper reports on the latest update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2006: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government...

The authors report on the latest version of the worldwide governance indicators, covering 213 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance from 1996 until end-2005: voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence, government effectiveness, regulatory...

The authors present the latest update of their aggregate governance indicators, together with new analysis of several issues related to the use of these measures. The governance indicators measure the following six dimensions of governance: (1) voice and accountability; (2) political instability...

This paper characterizes the dynamic effects of shocks in government spending and taxes on economic activity in the United States in the post-war period. It does so by using a mixed structural VAR/event study approach. Identification is achieved by using institutional information about the tax...

We consider a New Keynesian model with downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) and show that government spending is much more effective in stimulating output in a low-inflation recession relative to a high-inflation recession. The government spending multiplier is large when DNWR binds, but the...

We estimate the effects of fiscal policy on the labor market in US data. An increase in government spending of 1 percent of GDP generates output and unemployment multipliers respectively of about 1.2 per cent (at one year) and 0.6 percentage points (at the peak). Each percentage point increase...

We document that variations in government purchases generate a rise in consumption, the real and the product wage, and a fall in the markup. This evidence is robust across alternative empirical methodologies used to identify innovations in government spending (structural VAR vs. narrative...