The current debt crisis in many OECD countries calls for adequate strategies in budget consolidation. To regain fiscal solvency many governments base their fiscal adjustments at least partly on spending cuts. A common political claim is that spending cuts rely too much on investment thereby...

The current debt crisis in many OECD countries calls for adequate strategies in budget consolidation. To regain fiscal solvency many governments base their fiscal adjustments at least partly on spending cuts. A common political claim is that spending cuts rely too much on investment thereby...

This paper analyzes the short-term effects of fiscal adjustments on macroeconomic aggregates for a panel of 20 OECD countries during 1970--2008. We find that episodes of budget consolidation have an insignificant impact on growth and consumption. On the other hand, fiscal adjustments are...