The Keynesian intuition that increasing consumption can stimulate investment is verified empirically using US macroeconomic data. The investment multiplier is hypothesized to increase monotonically with the propensity to consume. However, the functional relationship is not that of the Keynesian...

It is shown empirically that, for the US economy, fiscal stimulus has increased total consumption, but has depressed economic growth. Therefore, decades of fiscal stimulus has been a continual depressant on US economic growth and moved the economy closer to the Keynesian singularity defined as...