Do Temporary Cash Transfers Stimulate the Macroeconomy? Evidence from Four Case Studies

Valerie Ramey

No 19943, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: This paper re-evaluates the effectiveness of temporary transfers in stimulating the macroeconomy using evidence from four case studies. The rebirth of Keynesian stabilization policy has lingering costs in terms of higher debt paths, so it is important to assess the benefits of these policies. In each case study, I analyze whether the behavior of the aggregate data is consistent with the transfers providing an effective stimulus. Two of the case studies are reviews of evidence from my recent work on the 2001 and 2008 U.S. tax rebates. The other two case studies are new analyses of temporary transfers in Singapore and Australia. In all four instances, the evidence suggests that temporary cash transfers to households likely provided little or no stimulus to the macroeconomy.

Keywords: Fiscal; multipliers (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E21 E27 E62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19943 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:19943

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP19943

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CEPR ().