IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aejmac/v8y2016i4p1-42.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Transfer Payments and the Macroeconomy: The Effects of Social Security Benefit Increases, 1952-1991

Author

Listed:
  • Christina D. Romer
  • David H. Romer

Abstract

This paper uses Social Security benefit increases from 1952 to 1991 to investigate the macroeconomic effects of changes in transfers. It finds a large, immediate, and significant positive response of consumption to permanent benefit increases. The response declines after about five months, and does not appear to spread to industrial production or employment. The effects of transfers are faster, but much less persistent and much smaller overall, than those of tax changes. Finally, monetary policy responds strongly to benefit increases but not to tax changes. This may account for the failure of the effects of transfers to persist or spread.

Suggested Citation

  • Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2016. "Transfer Payments and the Macroeconomy: The Effects of Social Security Benefit Increases, 1952-1991," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 1-42, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:8:y:2016:i:4:p:1-42
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/mac.20140348
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/mac.20140348
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=9vcyfe-H10HJUeW5wl3UeSmqTm8cBu2W
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=2xJXC1KuX4abX8m-FUFCmnjg8qdZfyGA
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles/attachments?retrieve=3pYczmL32oRIUO5censG4nTpcVeH895F
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Luigi Marattin & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Porcelli, 2022. "Revenue vs expenditure based fiscal consolidation: the pass-through from federal cuts to local taxes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(4), pages 834-872, August.
    2. Girish Bahal & Anand Shrivastava, 2022. "Fiscal transfers and inflation: evidence from India," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(4), pages 1837-1858, October.
    3. Párraga Rodríguez, Susana, 2018. "The dynamic effects of public expenditure shocks in the United States," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 340-360.
    4. Konstantinou, Panagiotis Th. & Partheniou, Andromachi, 2021. "The Effects of Government Spending Over the Business Cycle: A Disaggregated Analysis for OECD and Non-OECD Countries," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 809-822.
    5. Valerie A. Ramey, 2019. "Ten Years after the Financial Crisis: What Have We Learned from the Renaissance in Fiscal Research?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 89-114, Spring.
    6. Leonardo Melosi & Francesco Zanetti, 2022. "The Signaling Effects of Fiscal Announcements," Working Paper Series WP 2022-38, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    7. Dante Cardoso & Laura Carvalho & Gilberto Tadeu Lima & Luiza Nassif-Pires & Fernando Rugitsky & Marina Sanches, 2023. "The Multiplier Effects of Government Expenditures on Social Protection: A Multi-Country Analysis," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2023_11, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    8. Ernest Dautovic & Harald Hau & Yi Huang, 2017. "The Consumption Response to Minimum Wages: Evidence from Chinese Households," IHEID Working Papers 01-2017, Economics Section, The Graduate Institute of International Studies.
    9. Max Breitenlechner & Martin Geiger & Mathias Klein, 2024. "The Fiscal Channel of Monetary Policy," Working Papers 2024-07, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    10. Gechert, Sebastian & Paetz, Christoph & Villanueva, Paloma, 2021. "The macroeconomic effects of social security contributions and benefits," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 571-584.
    11. Yan Miao & Zheng Li, 2023. "The poverty alleviation effect of transfer payments: evidence from China," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-9, December.
    12. Marina da Silva Sanches & Laura Barbosa de Carvalho, 2023. "Multiplier effects of social protection: a SVAR approach for Brazil," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 93-112, January.
    13. Pedro Bação & Marta Simões, 0. "Is the Welfare State Relevant for Economic Growth? Evidence for Portugal," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 0, pages 1-27.
    14. Favero, Carlo A. & Giavazzi, Francesco & Alesina, Alberto & Paradisi, Matteo & Barbiero, Omar, 2017. "The effects of Fiscal Consolidations: Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 12016, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Bill Dupor & Guerrero Rodrigo, 2017. "The Aggregate and Relative Economic Effects of Government Financed Health Care," Working Papers 2017-27, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    16. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    17. Syed Hussain & Lin Liu, 2022. "Macroeconomic Effects of Government Spending Shocks: New Narrative Evidence from Canada," Working Papers 202201, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.
    18. Oscar Iván Avila-Montealegre & Juan J. Ospina-Tejeiro & Mario A. Ramos-Veloza, 2024. "Macroeconomic Effects of Healthcare Financing in Colombia," Borradores de Economia 1278, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    19. Susana Párraga Rodríguez, 2023. "The aggregate effects of government income transfers shocks: EU evidence," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 1-28, March.
    20. Hussain, Syed M. & Liu, Lin, 2023. "Macroeconomic effects of government spending shocks: New narrative evidence from Canada," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    21. Kim, Wongi, 2021. "Macroeconomic effects of government transfer payments: Evidence from Korea," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    22. Pappa, Evi & Molteni, Francesco, 2017. "The Combination of Monetary and Fiscal Policy Shocks: A TVP-FAVAR Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 12541, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    23. Balázs Zélity, 2022. "Permanent income shocks and inflation," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 42(2), pages 476-493.
    24. Girish Bahal, 2020. "Estimating the Impact of Welfare Programs on Agricultural Output: Evidence from India," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(3), pages 982-998, May.
    25. Pedro Bação & Marta Simões, 2020. "Is the Welfare State Relevant for Economic Growth? Evidence for Portugal," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(3), pages 494-520, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:8:y:2016:i:4:p:1-42. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.