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Assessing the Effects of Fiscal Shocks

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Author Info
Craig Burnside
Martin Eichenbaum
Jonas D.M. Fisher

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Abstract

This paper investigates the response of real wages and hours worked to an exogenous shock in fiscal policy. We identify this shock with the dynamic response of government purchases and tax rates to an exogenous increase in military purchases. The fiscal shocks that we isolate are characterized by highly correlated increases in government purchases, tax rates and hours worked as well as persistent declines in real wages. We assess the ability of standard Real Business Cycle models to account for these facts. They can-but only under the assumption that marginal income tax rates are constant, a standard assumption in the literature. Once we abandon this counterfactual assumption, RBC models cannot account for the facts. We argue that our empirical findings pose a challenge to a wide class of business cycle models.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 7459.

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Date of creation: Jan 2000
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7459

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles
E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook

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  2. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Devereux, Michael B & Head, Allen C & Lapham, Beverly J, 1996. "Monopolistic Competition, Increasing Returns, and the Effects of Government Spending," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 28(2), pages 233-54, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Hansen, Gary D., 1985. "Indivisible labor and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 309-327, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1992. "Current Real-Business-Cycle Theories and Aggregate Labor-Market Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 430-50, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  7. Eichenbaum, Martin S & Hansen, Lars Peter & Singleton, Kenneth J, 1988. "A Time Series Analysis of Representative Agent Models of Consumption and Leisure Choice under Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 103(1), pages 51-78, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Craig Burnside & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 1993. "Labor Hoarding and the Business Cycle," NBER Working Papers 3556, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 1998. "Monetary Policy Shocks: What Have We Learned and to What End?," NBER Working Papers 6400, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Wendy Edelberg & Martin Eichenbaum & Jonas D.M. Fisher, 1998. "Understanding the effects of a shock to government purchases," Working Paper Series WP-98-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
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  11. Pencavel, John, 1987. "Labor supply of men: A survey," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 1, pages 3-102 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Robert J. Barro & Chaipat Sahasakul, 1983. "Measuring the Average Marginal Tax Rate from the Individual Income Tax," University of Chicago - George G. Stigler Center for Study of Economy and State 26, Chicago - Center for Study of Economy and State.
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  15. David Card, 1991. "Intertemporal Labor Supply: An Assessment," NBER Working Papers 3602, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 1996. "Sticky price and limited participation models of money: a comparison," Staff Report 227, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  18. Stephenson, E. Frank, 1998. "Average marginal tax rates revisited," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 389-409, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1991. "Productive externalities and business cycles," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 53, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  21. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 1998. "Modeling Money," NBER Working Papers 6371, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. Rogerson, Richard, 1988. "Indivisible labor, lotteries and equilibrium," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 3-16, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Killingsworth, Mark R. & Heckman, James J., 1987. "Female labor supply: A survey," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & R. Layard (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 103-204 Elsevier. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  26. Ohanian, Lee E, 1997. "The Macroeconomic Effects of War Finance in the United States: World War II and the Korean War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 23-40, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. Craig Burnside & Martin Eichenbaum & Jonas D.M. Fisher, 1999. "Fiscal shocks in an efficiency wage model," Working Paper Series WP-99-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
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  28. Rotemberg, Julio J & Woodford, Michael, 1992. "Oligopolistic Pricing and the Effects of Aggregate Demand on Economic Activity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1153-1207, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  29. Alexopoulos, Michelle, 2004. "Unemployment and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 277-298, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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