A key issue in current research and policy is the size of fiscal multipliers when the economy is in recession. Using a variety of methods and data sources, we provide three insights. First, using regime-switching models, we estimate effects of tax and spending policies that can vary over the...

A structural, large dimensional factor model is used to evaluate the role of "news" shocks (shocks with a delayed effect on productivity) in generating the business cycle. We find that (i) existing small-scale VAR models are affected by "non-fundamentalness" and therefore fail to recover the...

We explore a century-long dataset with a Markov-switching structural VAR to estimate state-dependent government spending multipliers. We show that the multiplier values are statistically larger during recessions than during expansions. However, the multipliers are always smaller than 1. Our...

We investigate government spending multipliers using a two-regime model and impulse response functions with fully endogenous regimes. While short-run multipliers vary depending on business cycle fluctuations, we find little evidence that medium or long-run multipliers vary between expansions and...

We investigate the role of "noise" shocks as a source of business cycle fluctuations. To do so we set up a simple model of imperfect information and derive restrictions for identifying the noise shock in a VAR model. The novelty of our approach is that identification is reached by means of...

Assessing potential output and the output gap is essential for policy-making and fiscal surveillance. The European Commission proposes a production function methodology that involves the estimation of two classes of Gaussian state space models. This paper presents the R package RGAP which...

We estimate government spending multipliers in demand- and supply-driven recessions for the Euro Area. Multipliers in a moderately demand-driven recession are 2-3 times larger than in a moderately supply-driven recession, with the difference between multipliers being non-zero with very high...

We estimate government spending multipliers in demand- and supply-driven recessions for the Euro Area. Multipliers in a moderately demand-driven recession are 2-3 times larger than in a moderately supply-driven recession, with the difference between multipliers being non-zero with very high...

Short-time work is a labor market policy that subsidizes working time reductions among firms in financial difficulty in order to prevent layoffs and stabilize employment. Many OECD countries have used this policy in the Great Recession, for example. This paper shows that the effects of...

Short-time work is a labor market policy that subsidizes working time reductions among firms in financial difficulty to prevent layoffs. Many OECD countries have used this policy in the Great Recession. This paper shows that the effects of short-time work are strongly time dependent and...