Implementing the New Fiscal Policy Activism

Alan Auerbach

No 14725, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: To many observers, the current recession provides compelling circumstances for renewed fiscal policy activism. But the strong support for fiscal policy intervention reflects a renewed belief in policy activism that had already appeared before the present crisis. However, the recent debate about possible fiscal policy interventions suggests that we are still relying on the approaches to discretionary policy used in past periods of policy activism. It is not surprising that there have been few advances in discretionary policy design, given the lack of favor such policy suffered over many years. But if we are going to practice fiscal discretionary policy on a large scale, then more attention to policy design is sorely needed.

JEL-codes: E62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba and nep-mac
Note: PE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (48)

Published as Alan J. Auerbach, 2009. "Implementing the New Fiscal Policy Activism," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 543-49, May.

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14725.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Implementing the New Fiscal Policy Activism (2009)
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:nbr:nberwo:14725

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w14725

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (wpc@nber.org).