Spending-based austerity measures and their effects on output and unemployment

Evi Pappa, Dimitrios Bermperoglu and Eugenia Vella
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Dimitrios Bermperoglou

No 9383, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We compare the output and unemployment effects of fiscal adjustments in different types of government outlays in the US, Canada, Japan, and the UK. We identify shocks in government consumption, investment, vacancies and government wages in a SVAR using sign restrictions extracted from a New-Keynesian model with matching frictions in the private and public sector, endogenous labor force participation and heterogeneous unemployed jobseekers. Government vacancy cuts are associated with the highest output losses and the lowest gains in terms of deficit reductions. This is because such shocks generate an additional wealth effect: they induce a fall in the number of working members of the household that leads to a fall in private consumption and investment demand. On the other hand, government wage cuts are the least destructive device for cutting the budget.

Keywords: Austerity; Nk model; Output and unemployment multipliers; Search and matching frictions; Sign restrictions; Vars (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C11 E12 E32 E62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013-03
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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