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Ireland’s Fiscal Spending Multipliers

Author

Listed:
  • Kate Ivory

    (Irish Fiscal Advisory Council)

  • Eddie Casey

    (Irish Fiscal Advisory Council)

  • Niall Conroy

    (Irish Fiscal Advisory Council)

Abstract

This paper estimates government spending multipliers for Ireland. We add to the existing literature on Ireland-specific fiscal spending multipliers in two key ways. First, we focus on measures of economic activity that remove distortions caused by foreign-owned multinational enterprises, thus allowing us to derive truer estimates of the impact on the domestic economy of changes in fiscal policy. Second, we employ a number of statistical approaches in order to sense-check the multiplier estimates we derive, including standard SVAR approaches, an expectations-augmented VAR (EVAR) approach, and estimates based on a large-scale structural model. Our results show that government investment can have positive and significant initial impacts on Irish output, though these effects tend to disappear and/or become statistically insignificant over the longer term. Other forms of fiscal spending do not have a statistically significant effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Kate Ivory & Eddie Casey & Niall Conroy, 2020. "Ireland’s Fiscal Spending Multipliers," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 51(1), pages 133-172.
  • Handle: RePEc:eso:journl:v:51:y:2020:i:1:p:133-172
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    References listed on IDEAS

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