This paper studies regional output asymmetries following U.S. federal tax shocks. We estimate a vector autoregressive model for each U.S. state, utilizing the exogenous tax shock series recently proposed by Romer and Romer (2010) and find considerable variations: estimated output multipliers lie...

This paper empirically analyses the relationship between political leaders' socioeconomic backgrounds and public budget deficits utilising panel data on 21 OECD countries from 1980 to 2008. Building on sociological, as well as economic, research, we argue that the socioeconomic status of...

This paper provides background information and basic descriptive statistics for a representative survey of the German population conducted on our behalf by GfK in the first quarter of 2013. The survey addresses important topics in fiscal policy, including: 1) public preferences on the...

Using a representative survey of the German population, this paper studies individual consumption responses to a recent payroll tax reduction. Our results show that 55% of the respondents spend the extra money, indicating considerable potential for tax changes to affect consumption and economic...

Using representative household surveys conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in two emerging economies, Thailand and Vietnam, we examine the relationship between inflation expectations and consumption. In both countries, our results show an insignificant relationship between expected inflation...

A widespread view in the 'political budget cycles' literature is that incumbent politicians seek to influence voters' perceptions of their competence and/or preferences by using the composition of the fiscal budget as a signalling tool. However, little is known about whether voters actually...

In evaluating surveys conducted in Thailand and Vietnam during the COVID-19 pandemic, we find that the marginal propensity to consume is significantly larger for positive than for negative income shocks. This result contradicts a prediction from the lifecycle permanent income model with...

Employing a sample of Spanish municipalities from the Madrid region for the period 2010-2019, we study the influence of a politician's sex on political budget cycles (PBCs). The Madrid region is subject to a homogenous set of budget rules, which allows consistently categorising budget...

In response to the economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments provided financial assistance to households. Using representative consumer surveys conducted during the pandemic in 2020, we examine the effects of this fiscal policy instrument on households in two emerging...

In response to the spillovers of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, many governments paid cash transfers to households. We examine the effect of this fiscal policy instrument on households in two emerging economies, Vietnam and Thailand. Our analysis is based representative population surveys...