Debt-dependent effects of fiscal expansions

Huixin Bi, Wenyi Shen and Shu-Chun Yang

European Economic Review, 2016, vol. 88, issue C, 142-157

Abstract: Economists often postulate that fiscal expansions are less stimulative when government debt is high than when it is low. Empirical evidence, however, is ambiguous. Using a nonlinear neoclassical growth model, we show that the difference in government spending effects between high- and low-debt environments depends on the wealth effect on labor supply and on whether the government uses taxes or spending to retire debt. Because of interrelated state variables, structural VAR estimations conditioning on debt alone can fail to isolate debt-dependent effects. Also, uncertainty on when the government will conduct fiscal consolidations generates wide confidence bands for spending multipliers, further complicating efforts to estimate debt-dependent government spending effects.

Keywords: Debt-dependent government spending effect; State-dependent fiscal policy effects; Fiscal multipliers; Fiscal uncertainty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E62 H30 H60 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (28)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eecrev:v:88:y:2016:i:c:p:142-157

DOI: 10.1016/j.euroecorev.2016.04.001

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