IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecmode/v143y2025ics026499932400292x.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Did the American Rescue Plan cause inflation? A synthetic control approach

Author

Listed:
  • Ko, Dong Gyun

Abstract

This paper investigates the fiscal impact of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) on the post-pandemic surge in U.S. inflation. In the existing literature, the dominant strategy for identifying inflation determinants is through structural or reduced-form equation modeling; however, a definitive consensus on the causes of the U.S. inflationary episode remains elusive due to a lack of data-driven counterfactual analysis. To address this gap, we uniquely apply a synthetic control approach to estimate the causal effect of the ARP on U.S. inflation. The findings reveal that the ARP excessively stimulates aggregate demand via large-scale unfunded transfers, causing U.S. inflation to deviate upward from its counterfactual path. Moreover, this policy intervention significantly elevates inflation expectations and diminishes consumer confidence, thereby activating the fiscal limit mechanism: unfunded fiscal shocks, combined with waning fiscal credibility, lead private agents to anticipate that national debt will be inflated away, resulting in large and persistent inflation.

Suggested Citation

  • Ko, Dong Gyun, 2025. "Did the American Rescue Plan cause inflation? A synthetic control approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:143:y:2025:i:c:s026499932400292x
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2024.106935
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S026499932400292X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econmod.2024.106935?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    American Rescue Plan; COVID-19 pandemic; Fiscal stimulus; Inflation; Synthetic control; Fiscal limit mechanism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General

    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:eee:ecmode:v:143:y:2025:i:c:s026499932400292x. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30411 .

    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.