IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bav/wpaper/197_fehrlehuber.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Business cycle accounting for the German fiscal stimulus program during the Great Recession

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel Fehrle
  • Johannes Huber

Abstract

We take the neoclassical perspective and apply the business cycle accounting method as proposed by Chari, Kehoe, and McGrattan (2007, Econometrica) for the Great Recession and the associated stimulus program in Germany 2008-2009. We include wedges to the variables government consumption, durables, investment, labor, net exports, and efficiency. The results suggest: The crisis was mainly driven by the efficiency wedge, followed by the net exports and the investment wedge. The government consumption wedge and in particular the durables wedge acted counter-cyclical. We attribute the latter to an internationally incomparably large cash for clunkers program and conclude that this subsidy on durable goods was more effective than pure government consumption. We introduce a strategy for likelihood maximization, which reliably and quickly locates the maximum; enables a detailed evaluation of the likelihood function and allows large robustness checks.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel Fehrle & Johannes Huber, 2020. "Business cycle accounting for the German fiscal stimulus program during the Great Recession," Working Papers 197, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
  • Handle: RePEc:bav:wpaper:197_fehrlehuber
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://bgpe.cms.rrze.uni-erlangen.de/files/2023/07/197_Business-cycle-accounting-for-the-German-fiscal-stimulus-program-during-the-Great-Recession.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2020
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Kollmann & Marco Ratto & Werner Roeger & Jan in't Veld & Lukas Vogel, 2015. "What drives the German current account? And how does it affect other EU Member States?," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 30(81), pages 47-93.
    2. Masaru Inaba & Kengo Nutahara, 2012. "An application of business cycle accounting with misspecified wedges," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 265-269, April.
    3. Shu-Shiuan Lu, 2012. "East Asian growth experience revisited from the perspective of a neoclassical model," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(3), pages 359-376, July.
    4. Chang, Yongsung, 2000. "Comovement, excess volatility, and home production," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 385-396, October.
    5. Christiano, Lawrence J, 2002. "Solving Dynamic Equilibrium Models by a Method of Undetermined Coefficients," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 20(1-2), pages 21-55, October.
    6. Iskrev, Nikolay, 2010. "Local identification in DSGE models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 189-202, March.
    7. Otsu Keisuke, 2010. "A Neoclassical Analysis of the Asian Crisis: Business Cycle Accounting for a Small Open Economy," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-39, July.
    8. Chakraborty Suparna & Otsu Keisuke, 2013. "Business cycle accounting of the BRIC economies," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(1), pages 381-413, September.
    9. Loukas Karabarbounis, 2014. "The Labor Wedge: MRS vs. MPN," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 17(2), pages 206-223, April.
    10. Gehrke, Britta & Lechthaler, Wolfgang & Merkl, Christian, 2019. "The German labor market during the Great Recession: Shocks and institutions," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 192-208.
    11. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2009. "New Keynesian Models: Not Yet Useful for Policy Analysis," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 242-266, January.
    12. Michael Flor, 2014. "Post Reunification Economic Fluctuations in Germany: A Real Business Cycle Interpretation," Working Papers 146, Bavarian Graduate Program in Economics (BGPE).
    13. Durbin, James & Koopman, Siem Jan, 2012. "Time Series Analysis by State Space Methods," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, edition 2, number 9780199641178, December.
    14. Atif Mian & Amir Sufi, 2012. "The Effects of Fiscal Stimulus: Evidence from the 2009 Cash for Clunkers Program," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1107-1142.
    15. Atif Mian & Kamalesh Rao & Amir Sufi, 2013. "Household Balance Sheets, Consumption, and the Economic Slump," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 128(4), pages 1687-1726.
    16. Pedro Brinca & Nikolay Iskrev & Francesca Loria, 2022. "On Identification Issues in Business Cycle Accounting Models," Advances in Econometrics, in: Essays in Honour of Fabio Canova, volume 44, pages 55-138, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    17. Flor Michael, 2014. "Post reunification economic fluctuations in Germany: a real business cycle interpretation," Review of Business and Economics Studies, CyberLeninka;Федеральное государственное образовательное бюджетное учреждение высшего профессионального образования «Финансовый университет при Правительстве Российской Федерации» (Финансовый университет), issue 4, pages 5-17.
    18. Fehrle, Daniel, 2019. "Housing and the business cycle revisited," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 103-115.
    19. Gertler, Mark & Kiyotaki, Nobuhiro, 2010. "Financial Intermediation and Credit Policy in Business Cycle Analysis," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 11, pages 547-599, Elsevier.
    20. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393, Elsevier.
    21. Ruy Lama, 2011. "Accounting for Output Drops in Latin America," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(2), pages 295-316, April.
    22. V. V. Chari & Patrick J. Kehoe & Ellen R. McGrattan, 2007. "Business Cycle Accounting," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(3), pages 781-836, May.
    23. Carlstrom, Charles T & Fuerst, Timothy S, 1997. "Agency Costs, Net Worth, and Business Fluctuations: A Computable General Equilibrium Analysis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 893-910, December.
    24. Dooyeon Cho & Antonio Doblas-Madrid, 2013. "Business Cycle Accounting East and West: Asian Finance and the Investment Wedge," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 16(4), pages 724-744, October.
    25. David N. DeJong & Chetan Dave, 2011. "Structural Macroeconometrics Second Edition," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 9622.
    26. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist, 2018. "What Happened: Financial Factors in the Great Recession," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 32(3), pages 3-30, Summer.
    27. Erasmus Kersting, 2008. "The 1980s Recession in the UK: A Business Cycle Accounting Perspective," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 11(1), pages 179-191, January.
    28. Casey B. Mulligan, 2005. "Public policies as specification errors," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(4), pages 902-926, October.
    29. Burkhard Heer & Alfred Maußner, 2024. "Dynamic General Equilibrium Modeling," Springer Texts in Business and Economics, Springer, edition 3, number 978-3-031-51681-8, April.
    30. Drygalla, Andrej & Holtemöller, Oliver & Kiesel, Konstantin, 2020. "The Effects Of Fiscal Policy In An Estimated Dsge Model—The Case Of The German Stimulus Packages During The Great Recession," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(6), pages 1315-1345, September.
    31. David Berger & Joseph Vavra, 2015. "Consumption Dynamics During Recessions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83, pages 101-154, January.
    32. Greenwood, Jeremy & Hercowitz, Zvi & Krusell, Per, 1997. "Long-Run Implications of Investment-Specific Technological Change," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(3), pages 342-362, June.
    33. Gadatsch, Niklas & Hauzenberger, Klemens & Stähler, Nikolai, 2016. "Fiscal policy during the crisis: A look on Germany and the Euro area with GEAR," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 997-1016.
    34. Brinca, P. & Chari, V.V. & Kehoe, P.J. & McGrattan, E., 2016. "Accounting for Business Cycles," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1013-1063, Elsevier.
    35. Efraim Benmelech & Ralf R. Meisenzahl & Rodney Ramcharan, 2017. "The Real Effects of Liquidity During the Financial Crisis: Evidence from Automobiles," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 317-365.
    36. Hansen, G.D. & Ohanian, L.E., 2016. "Neoclassical Models in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2043-2130, Elsevier.
    37. Gerth Florian & Otsu Keisuke, 2018. "The post-crisis slump in Europe: a business cycle accounting analysis," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-25, January.
    38. Masaru Inaba & Kengo Nutahara, 2012. "An application of business cycle accounting with misspecified wedges," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 15(2), pages 265-269, April.
    39. Dmitry Plotnikov, 2017. "What Prevents a Real Business Cycle Model from Matching the U.S. Data? Decomposing the Labor Wedge," IMF Working Papers 2017/201, International Monetary Fund.
    40. Lee E. Ohanian, 2010. "The Economic Crisis from a Neoclassical Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 24(4), pages 45-66, Fall.
    41. David Leuwer & Bernd Süssmuth, 2018. "Assessing Temporary Product-Specific Subsidies: A Time Series Intervention Analysis," CESifo Working Paper Series 6946, CESifo.
    42. Marimon, Ramon & Scott, Andrew (ed.), 1999. "Computational Methods for the Study of Dynamic Economies," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198294979.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. del Río, Fernando & Lores, Francisco-Xavier, 2021. "Accounting for U.S. economic growth 1954–2017," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pedro Brinca & João Ricardo Costa Filho & Francesca Loria, 2024. "Business cycle accounting: What have we learned so far?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 1276-1316, September.
    2. Matheus Cardoso Leal & Marcio Issao Nakane, 2022. "Brazilian economy in the 2000’s: A tale of two recessions," Working Papers, Department of Economics 2022_20, University of São Paulo (FEA-USP).
    3. del Río, Fernando & Lores, Francisco-Xavier, 2021. "Accounting for U.S. economic growth 1954–2017," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    4. Jiang, Dou, 2023. "Output drops in ASEAN-5 countries: A business cycle accounting perspective," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    5. Gerth Florian & Otsu Keisuke, 2018. "The post-crisis slump in Europe: a business cycle accounting analysis," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-25, January.
    6. Brinca, P. & Chari, V.V. & Kehoe, P.J. & McGrattan, E., 2016. "Accounting for Business Cycles," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1013-1063, Elsevier.
    7. Fernando del Río & Francisco‐Xavier Lores, 2023. "Accounting for the role of investment frictions in recessions," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 90(360), pages 1089-1118, October.
    8. Hansen, G.D. & Ohanian, L.E., 2016. "Neoclassical Models in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2043-2130, Elsevier.
    9. Brinca, Pedro & Costa-Filho, João, 2021. "Economic depression in Brazil: the 2014-2016 fall," MPRA Paper 107298, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Brinca, Pedro & João, Costa-Filho, 2021. "Output falls and the international transmission of crises," MPRA Paper 107297, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Feld, Lars P. & Schmidt, Christoph M. & Schnabel, Isabel & Truger, Achim & Wieland, Volker, 2019. "Den Strukturwandel meistern. Jahresgutachten 2019/20 [Dealing with Structural Change. Annual Report 2019/20]," Annual Economic Reports / Jahresgutachten, German Council of Economic Experts / Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung, volume 127, number 201920.
    12. del Río, Fernando & Lores, Francisco-Xavier, 2023. "Accounting for the role of investment frictions in recessions," MPRA Paper 116024, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. del Río, Fernando & Lores, Francisco-Xavier, 2020. "Accounting for U.S. post-war economic growth," MPRA Paper 100716, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Keisuke Otsu, 2012. "How well can business cycle accounting account for business cycles?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 1774-1784.
    15. Fernandes, Daniel, 2022. "Business Cycle Accounting for the COVID-19 Recession," MPRA Paper 111577, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Petre Caraiani, 2016. "Business Cycle Accounting for Peripheral European Economies," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 63(5), pages 468-496, November.
    17. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    18. Masaru INABA & Kengo NUTAHARA & Daichi SHIRAI, 2023. "Sources of Inequality and Business Cycles: Evidence from the US and Japan," CIGS Working Paper Series 23-006E, The Canon Institute for Global Studies.
    19. Ge, Xinyu & Li, Xiao-Lin & Li, Yong & Liu, Yan, 2022. "The driving forces of China's business cycles: Evidence from an estimated DSGE model with housing and banking," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    20. Madanizadeh, Seyed Ali & Karimirad, Ali & Rahmati, Mohammad H., 2019. "Business cycle accounting of trade barriers in a small open economy," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 67-78.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal stimulus; Great Recession; Business cycle accounting; Maximum-Likelihood;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • E20 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:bav:wpaper:197_fehrlehuber. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Anton Barabasch (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vierlde.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.