Government Expenditure Shocks Research Articles

The impact of fiscal shocks on economic growth and income inequality in Ghana: is there a trade-off?

PurposeThe study examines the impact of fiscal policy shocks on economic growth and income inequality in Ghana. This has become necessary because of the interdependence between growth and income inequality and the role fiscal policy plays in this relationship in the development process of a country. Thus, a study that investigates how government expenditure shock and tax revenue shock influence the relationship between economic growth and income inequality could assist policymakers to adopt the best policy mix to ensure income equity and sustained economic growth in Ghana.Design/methodology/approachIt employs sacrifice ratio from structural VAR model using quarterly time series data from 1996 to 2019 on Ghana.FindingsOur results show that government expenditure shock impacts economic growth, exchange rate and education positively and significantly in the long run. Also, tax revenue shock has a positive impact on income inequality, economic growth and education. The findings further show that there exists a trade-off between economic growth and income inequality in the long run.Originality/valueThe relationships between fiscal policy shocks, economic growth and income inequality have been extensively discussed among scholars. Understanding how these three macroeconomic variables are determined and their interrelationships are crucial for policymakers. This is because fiscal policy aids in both economic growth and income inequality. In the empirical literature, the emphasis has been on independently estimating the growth effects of fiscal policy or the distribution effects of fiscal policy, leaving out the existence of possible trade-off between economic growth and income inequality following a fiscal shock. To the best of our knowledge, no empirical study has been done on Ghana to empirically examine the trade-off between economic growth and income inequality as we do in this paper.

The Response of Macroeconomic Variables to Government Spending Shocks in the Sudanese Economy 1989-2019: Comparing the Structural Shocks (DSGE Approach) and Impulse Response (SVAR Model)

The importance that different (approaches and models) to modeling the macroeconomy place on theoretical coherence compared to their capacity to match the data and the quality of the econometric model description varies. Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are more theoretical, whereas vector autoregression (SVAR) models provide a better match to the data. For developed economies, there are well-established publications on measuring the response of economic indicators to government spending shocks and aggregate macroeconomic activity. In addition, such empirical studies in emerging nations are scarce. This research seeks to fill this void by utilizing the DSGE model and the SVAR approach to investigate the influence of the response of macroeconomic variables to government spending shocks in the Sudanese economy from 1989 to 2019. The findings indicate that the influence of government expenditure shocks on the Sudanese economy is inconsistent with Keynesian principles, as some selected macroeconomic indicators do not respond positively to government expenditure shocks. The non-responsiveness of the inflation rate and exchange rate to government expenditure shocks is demonstrated; this finding may indicate the monetary authority’s weakness in managing monetary variables in the Sudanese economy. In most situations, fiscal and monetary policies were in sync, and “double expansionary” and “double contractionary” policy coordination may be the proper approach; and also create tools that fit the Sudanese economy’s structure.

Fiscal and Monetary Policies Interaction in Crisis: An Insight Into Japan

In this study, we explore the interaction between fiscal and monetary policies in Japan over a period including the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) and a phase of the Covid-19 pandemic under the presupposition that policy regimes are fixed and there are random switches between the two regimes. Using the Regime switching model, the results show that fiscal policy is more active in Japan than monetary policy, especially during the GFC and the Covid-19 pandemic. By using the Bayesian VAR model, we continue to further analyze the response of macroeconomic factors to an expansionary fiscal policy to verify the above findings once again. The results indicate that government expenditure helps boost the economy in the short-run. The positive impact of a government expenditure shock on GDP, PPI, and Investment lasts about three to four quarters, while private consumption only increases in one next quarter. These positive responses can increase the inflation rate and make the local currency overvalued, reflected in the increase in the effective exchange rate. A fiscal policy shock does not have much impact on the monetary policy, specifically, the money supply and interest rates of long-term government bonds still tended to decrease as expected by Japan. This is the basis for studying policy implications for some countries pursuing similar policies to Japan. JEL Classification: C23, C54, E42, E62, E63

The macroeconomic effects of government spending shocks in New Zealand

ABSTRACT This paper estimates the macroeconomic effects of government spending shocks in New Zealand. Using a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model, I find small output multipliers for government consumption but large multipliers for government investment. Importantly, the real exchange rate appreciates after positive government spending shocks, consistent with classic theory. Private consumption and private investment decrease after government consumption shocks, but increase after government investment shocks. I compare my results to the previous studies and show that selecting the appropriate series for government investment is important for estimating its effect.

The Bayesian vector autoregressive model as an analysis of the government expenditure shocks while the covid-19 pandemic to macroeconomic factors

This empirical work aims to determine whether the government expenditure shocks on consumption have impacts on macroeconomic factors. This study prepares four quarterly period datasets associated with macroeconomic activities in Indonesia with 24 data started in 2017 until 2022, such as government expenditure shocks on consumption, inflation, interest rate, and gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate. This dataset is divided into two parts before and after the Covid-19 outbreak pandemic. The core findings indicate that expenditure shocks on consumption following the Covid-19 outbreak pandemic affect improving economic activity by using the Bayesian approach as the alternative model combined with the vector autoregression (VAR) model in overcoming the over-parameterization and the small dataset as the innovation of this findings. The core finding has the implication of stabilizing the unstable macroeconomic forces following the Covid-19 pandemic. It demonstrates how government expenditure shocks can be used to help the economy run appropriately and stable.

THE INFLUENCE OF FISCAL POLICY ON UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN TÜRKİYE

In the context of ongoing economic discussion, the connection between government actions and economic performance remains an important issue. There exist diverse opinions and arguments regarding how fiscal policy affects the unemployment rate from both empirical and theoretical perspective. The objective of this research is to explore the response of unemployment rate to fiscal policy shocks, namely government expenditure and tax revenue shocks. To achieve this goal, we gather annual data spanning from 1990 to 2021 for Türkiye employing recursive Structural VAR model. The results show that a tax revenue shock, corresponding to a one standard deviation change, initially results in a temporary decline in the unemployment but it positively affects the unemployment rate in the long run. Furthermore, the reaction of the unemployment to a government spending shock follows a hump-shape pattern. Hence, we can conclude that the government expenditure shock increases unemployment rate temporarily but decreases it slightly over the long term.

The composition of public spending and the inflationary effects of fiscal policy shocks

The paper uses structural proxy-vector autoregressions to separately identify shocks to US government investment and government consumption expenditures. Positive public investment shocks robustly raise inflation and have a weak and insignificant impact on labor productivity. In contrast, positive public consumption shocks induce a significant fall in inflation together with a strong and persistent increase in hourly productivity. The empirical findings are consistent with a model where demand shocks have an endogenous effect on productivity due to variable technology utilization. Increases in government investment, despite adding to a productive public capital stock, induce a relatively low endogenous increase in productivity and goods supply in the short run and thus are inflationary, whereas government consumption shocks can lead to a temporary productivity increase and inflation decrease if technology utilization is relatively inexpensive to vary.

Government expenditure structure, technological progress and economic growth

PurposeThis study examines the differences in the economic stimulus effects, transmission mechanisms, and output multipliers of government consumption, government traditional investment, and government science and technology investment.Design/methodology/approachThis study constructs and estimates a New Keynesian model of endogenous technological progress embedded in the research and development (R&D) and technology transfer sectors. Using Chinese macroeconomic time series data from 1996 to 2019, this study calibrates and estimates the model and analyzes the impulse response function and a counterfactual simulation of expenditure structure adjustment.FindingsThe results show that compared with the traditional dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model, the endogenous process of technological progress amplifies the impact of government consumption shock and traditional government investment shock on the macroeconomy, leading to greater economic cycle fluctuations. As government investment in science and technology has positive external spillover effects on firm R&D activities and the application of innovation achievements, it can promote more sustainable economic growth than government consumption and traditional investment in the long run.Originality/valueThis study constructs an extended New Keynesian model with different types of government spending, which includes endogenous technological progress within the R&D and technology transfer sectors, thereby linking fiscal policy, business cycle fluctuations and long-term economic growth. This model can study the macroeconomic impact of fiscal expenditure structure adjustment when fiscal expansion is limited. In the Bayesian estimation of model parameters, this study not only uses macroeconomic variables but also adds a sequence of private R&D investment.

The Active and Passive Fiscal-Monetary Policy Regimes and India’s Government Expenditure Shocks: Which Stand Matters the Most?

The Active and Passive Fiscal-Monetary Policy Regimes and India’s Government Expenditure Shocks: Which Stand Matters the Most?

Regional multipliers across the Italian regions

AbstractThis paper estimates the multipliers of different types of government spending in the 20 Italian administrative regions throughout 1994–2016. We derive region‐specific multipliers through a Bayesian random effect panel vector autoregressive model. We find that the EU structural funds, compared to the other types of government spending, provide the largest and most pervasively significant GDP multipliers, whereas the effectiveness of nationally funded government investment and, especially, government consumption shocks is more limited. An exploratory analysis of the regional multipliers suggests that they are positively associated with the amount of unused resources and the size of the regional economy.

Accounting for the Effect of Government Spending on Income Inequality: Role of Markup Dynamics

This paper examines the effect of government spending on the markups and income inequality by using a local projection method. We show that markup dynamics play a crucial role in explaining the effect of government spending on income inequality. Our main empirical results are as follows: (i) An increase in government purchases is positively related to the aggregate markup in the developing and closed economies. (ii) Through this positive relationship of markup with fiscal policy, the positive government expenditure shock raises the income inequality in the developing and closed economies. The validity of these results is confirmed by robustness checks.

Policy errors and business cycle fluctuations: Evidence from an emerging economy

In the immediate aftermath of the global financial crisis, the monetary policy in India became accommodative as in other major economies, but the policy subsequently turned highly contractionary despite falling inflation, which we characterize as policy errors. Government expenditure also had similar pattern. This paper therefore estimates a medium scale New Keynesian model (with earnings and assets based collateral constraint) to explore the impact of such policy errors on Indian business cycles, capturing the prevailing narrative on both monetary and fiscal policies along with the actual inflation scenario. Our smoothed estimates of mark-up, productivity, interest rate and government expenditure shocks mimic the actual transition of the economy, with both policy shocks moving together in a similar pattern in the post crisis period. We find that the interest rate policy was highly contractionary during 2013-2016 which led to significantly lower output. We rationalize that if supply side shocks (adverse productivity or mark-up) dominate, such policy errors tend to occur, suggesting that policy makers need to pay attention to the sources of inflation in a developing economy while setting demand-management policies. Given the current pandemic as more of a adverse supply shock, similar policy errors are likely to occur if interest rate responds to this type of inflationary shocks.

Phase-Dependent Monetary and Fiscal Policy

This paper studies how the effects of monetary and fiscal policy vary depending on the business cycle phase. It shows that in a medium-scale DSGE model, estimated on US data, monetary policy has a stronger impact on the economy in downturns and booms. Labor and capital income taxes display similar patterns. Government expenditure shocks and consumption tax shocks, on the contrary, have a stronger impact on output in depressions and recoveries. The paper also shows that accounting for the source of business cycle fluctuations is potentially important when assessing state-dependence in policy transmission.

Investigating the Effect of Financial and Monetary Policy on the Iranian Stock Market by Using DSGE Model

This paper uses a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to investigate the effect of fiscal and monetary policy on the stock market in Iran. Results show that a positive money shock leads to a rise in output, stock price index, and inflation. In addition, the response of the stock demand to money supply shock is negative. We found that a positive government expenditure shock led to a rise in output and inflation. The response of stock demand and stock price index to the government expenditure shocks are negative. Furthermore, results show that a stock market shock leads to a rise in output and inflation.

Reassessment of the Fiscal Multiplier in Developing Countries: Regime-Switching Model

Abstract The existing literature on fiscal policy has mainly employed linear models that found a small fiscal multiplier in developing economies. These findings challenge the importance and effectiveness of fiscal policy for these countries. However, linear models are not capable of distinguishing the size of a fiscal multiplier in the different phases of economic cycles. Responding to previous studies that confirm the regime dependency of a fiscal multiplier, we develop a non-linear panel threshold vector autoregression model to measure the size of the fiscal multiplier for developing countries. Our findings confirm asymmetry in the response of GDP to government expenditure shock during periods of recovery and downturn. Our main result shows that the response of GDP to government expenditure shock during a recovery period in developing countries is double that for developed ones. Our results also confirm a significantly larger fiscal multiplier during recovery than in an economic downturn. (JEL codes: E32, E62, G15, and C54)

The effects of fiscal policy shocks in Bangladesh: An agnostic identification procedure

This paper analyzes the macroeconomic effects of fiscal shocks in Bangladesh using the sign restriction approach in a Bayesian structural vector autoregression (SVAR) framework. We identify a generic business cycle shock to deal with the endogenous movement of fiscal variables along with a monetary policy shock to absorb the variations due to those shocks. Both unanticipated and anticipated fiscal shocks, that is, government expenditure and revenue shocks, are also identified by minimal sign restrictions. In identifying those shocks, we do not impose any restrictions on the sign of the key variable of interest. We find that private investment and consumption significantly increase due to expansionary government expenditure shock. Such an increase in private consumption is consistent with neo-Keynesian prediction. The fall in output due to the tax increase shock is highly robust. Private consumption also decreases due to a tax increase, although investment does not. The results suggest that fiscal policy, especially tax policy, is more effective than monetary policy in stabilizing output. Moreover, the fiscal authority could increase government expenditure without hurting private investment.

The effects of government spending shocks on income distribution in South Africa

PurposeThe main aim of this study is to examine the effect of government spending and its components' shocks on the distribution of income between labour and capital in South Africa for the period between 1994Q2 and 2019Q3.Design/methodology/approachThe effects of government spending shocks on income distribution are analysed using Jordà's (2005) local projection method. The shocks, however, are identified by applying short-run contemporaneous restrictions in a vector autoregressive model based on Cholesky identification scheme.FindingsThe results indicate that government spending shock has a positive and significant effect on labour share after the first quarter. This means that expansionary government spending has a paramount role in reducing income inequality in the economy. Both government investment and government consumption shocks have also contributed to a reduction in income inequality, though the magnitude effect is smaller for government consumption.Originality/valueResearch findings on the effects of government spending shock on income inequality are still inconclusive. Therefore, this research examines the effect of total government spending shock along with its components on labour income share for the South African economy.

The effects of government spending shocks on real exchange rate in Ethiopia

PurposeGovernment spending has inconclusive effect on real exchange rate. From the very beginning neoclassical economists argued that a rise in government spending brings depreciation in real exchange rate while neo-Keynesians claimed that government spending appreciates real exchange rate. Hence, the main purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of government spending shock and its components' shocks, namely government consumption and government investment on real exchange rate over the period 2001Q1–2016Q1 for Ethiopia.Design/methodology/approachTo examine the effects of government spending shocks on real exchange rate, Jordà's (2005) local projection method is employed in this study. The exogenous shocks, however, are identified recursively in a vector autoregressive model.FindingsThe impulse responses show that government spending shock leads to a statistically significant appreciation of real exchange rate in Ethiopia. This evidence supports the neo-Keynesian school of thought who predicts an appreciation of real exchange rate from a rise in government spending. While government investment shock depreciates real exchange rate on impact insignificantly, government consumption shock appreciates real exchange rate in this small open economy.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the scarce literature on the effect of fiscal policy shock on real exchange rate in small open economies like Ethiopia.

Macroeconomic Implications of Covid-19 Pandemic in Morocco

The aim of this paper is to study the effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Morocco and subsequent responses on the economy using in a linear DSGE model. The analysis takes into account internal and external shocks and a high level of unemployment since the pandemic crisis affects a priori some contact-intensive sectors but do widen to other sectors via general equilibrium, inducing a job loss worrying situation and subsequently a great recession. I use DSGE model with an open economy, nominal rigidities in prices and five types of agents (households, producers, retailers, monetary authority and fiscal authority). I calibrated the model using Bayesian techniques and data covering the period 1998Q1 – 2019Q2. Results indicate a lasting effect shock for at least 12 quarters after the impact. Higher public debt is an obvious result of all the shocks except for the consumption tax shock. Results indicates also a significant decline in GDP following external shocks, monetary policy shock, labor tax shock, capital tax shock and technology shock. The consumption tax shock has unlike the others a very small negative impact on GDP followed by an increase in GDP. For the government expenditure and investment shock, GDP eventually decreases after increasing on impact. The inflation shock has a surprisingly a positive impact on GDP followed by a negative one four quarters after the shock.

Impact of Fiscal Measures in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic on Small-Open Economies: Lessons from Slovenia

We estimate the impact of the fiscal expansion due to the COVID-19 outbreak on the Slovene economy using two models. First, we simulate fiscal shocks in 3-scenarios in a calibrated large-scale DSGE model. Second, we employ a small-scale VAR model to check the robustness of the theoretical results. The findings suggest a significant response of GDP, private consumption, and imports to fiscal shocks. In particular, the outcomes highlight that compared to other unanticipated fiscal developments a government consumption shock explains the lion's share of domestic fluctuations. The main transmission channel is high complementarity between private and government consumption.