The Structural Vector Auto-regression (SVAR) approach to estimating fiscal multipliers, following the seminal paper by Blanchard and Perotti (2002), has been widely applied in the literature. In our pa-per we discuss the interpretation of these estimates and suggest that they are more useful for...

We point out that fiscal multipliers derived from SVAR-models include the predicted future path of policy instruments. After the initial shock, net taxes and government expenditures react to each other and are autocorrelated. In a counterfactual simulation, we report fiscal multipliers that...

The Structural Vector Auto-regression (SVAR) approach to estimating fiscal multipliers, following the seminal paper by Blanchard and Perotti (2002), has been widely applied in the literature. In our paper we discuss the interpretation of these estimates and suggest that they are more useful for...

Using historical data, we test the validity of Wagner's law of increasing state activity at different stages of economic development for five industrialized European countries: the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Italy. In order to investigate the coherence between Wagner's law and...

By applying a Structural Vector Autoregressive (SVAR) approach this paper estimates the effects of fiscal policy shocks of different government sub-sectors on aggregate GDP in Germany. From a general government perspective, the results show that besides investment, it is particularly changes in...

In this article, we point out requirements for potential output estimates used for cyclical adjustment in the German debt brake. Further, we propose supplementing the cyclical component in the debt break with an error term - regardless of the specific potential output estimation approach. The...