【主题】 State Dependence of Fiscal Multipliers: The Source of Fluctuations Matters
【报告人】Francesco Zanetti（副教授，牛津大学）
【时间】6月18日 星期四 下午 20:00—21:30
【Zoom】会议号：947 333 58695 会议密码：252279
【摘要】 We develop a general theory of state-dependent fiscal multipliers in a framework featuring interaction between two empirically relevant goods market frictions: idle productive capacity and unsatisfied demand. Our key novel finding is that the source of economic fluctuations determines the cyclicality of fiscal multipliers. Policies that stimulate aggregate demand, such as government spending and consumption tax cuts, have multipliers that are large in demand-driven recessions, but small and possibly negative in supply-driven downturns. On the other hand, policies that
boost aggregate supply, such as cuts in taxes on labor income and firms’ payroll and sales, are ineffective in demand-driven recessions, but powerful if the downturn is driven by supply factors. Spending austerity, implemented by a reduction in government consumption, can be the policy with the largest multiplier in severe supply-side recessions and demand-driven booms, provided elasticities of labor demand and supply are sufficiently low. We obtain model-free empirical support for our theoretical predictions by using a novel econometric specification that allows us to
estimate spending and tax cut multipliers in recessionary and expansionary episodes, conditional on those being either demand- or supply-driven.
