IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pad/wpaper/0257.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Fiscal Multipliers Estimated with Proxy-SVARs Robust?

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Angelini

    (University of Bologna)

  • Giovanni Caggiano

    (Monash University and University of Padova)

  • Efrem Castelnuovo

    (University of Melbourne and University of Padova)

  • Luca Fanelli

    (University of Bologna)

Abstract

How large are government spending and tax multipliers? The fiscal proxy-SVAR literature provides heterogenous estimates, depending on which proxies - fiscal or non-fiscal - are used to identify fiscal shocks. We reconcile the existing estimates via a flexible vector autoregressive model that allows to achieve identification in presence of a number of structural shocks larger than that of the available instruments. Our two main findings are the following. First, the estimate of the tax multiplier is sensitive to the assumption of orthogonality between total factor productivity (non-fiscal proxy) and tax shocks. If this correlation is assumed to be zero, the tax multiplier is found to be around one. If such correlation is non-zero, as supported by our empirical evidence, we find a tax multiplier three times as large. Second, we find the spending multiplier to be robustly larger than one across different models that feature different sets of instruments. Our results are robust to the joint employment of different fiscal and non-fiscal instruments.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Angelini & Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Luca Fanelli, 2020. "Are Fiscal Multipliers Estimated with Proxy-SVARs Robust?," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0257, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
  • Handle: RePEc:pad:wpaper:0257
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economia.unipd.it/sites/economia.unipd.it/files/20200257.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "Measuring the Output Responses to Fiscal Policy," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 1-27, May.
    2. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2004. "A New Measure of Monetary Shocks: Derivation and Implications," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1055-1084, September.
    3. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2013. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(4), pages 1212-1247, June.
    4. Carlo Favero & Francesco Giavazzi, 2012. "Measuring Tax Multipliers: The Narrative Method in Fiscal VARs," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 69-94, May.
    5. Owen Zidar, 2019. "Tax Cuts for Whom? Heterogeneous Effects of Income Tax Changes on Growth and Employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 127(3), pages 1437-1472.
    6. Valerie A. Ramey, 2011. "Identifying Government Spending Shocks: It's all in the Timing," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 126(1), pages 1-50.
    7. Karel Mertens & José Luis Montiel Olea, 2018. "Marginal Tax Rates and Income: New Time Series Evidence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1803-1884.
    8. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio Primiceri & Andrea Tambalotti, 2011. "Investment Shocks and the Relative Price of Investment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(1), pages 101-121, January.
    9. Glenn Follette & Byron Lutz, 2010. "Fiscal Policy in the United States: Automatic Stabilizers, Discretionary Fiscal Policy Actions, and the Economy," Revista de Economía y Estadística, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Instituto de Economía y Finanzas, vol. 48(1), pages 41-73, Junio.
    10. Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez & Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2010. "Structural Vector Autoregressions: Theory of Identification and Algorithms for Inference," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 665-696.
    11. Michael W. McCracken & Serena Ng, 2016. "FRED-MD: A Monthly Database for Macroeconomic Research," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 574-589, October.
    12. Brüggemann, Ralf & Jentsch, Carsten & Trenkler, Carsten, 2016. "Inference in VARs with conditional heteroskedasticity of unknown form," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 191(1), pages 69-85.
    13. Karel Mertens & Morten Overgaard Ravn, 2011. "Understanding the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated Tax Policy Shocks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(1), pages 27-54, January.
    14. Christina D. Romer & David H. Romer, 2010. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Tax Changes: Estimates Based on a New Measure of Fiscal Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 763-801, June.
    15. Jordi Galí & J. David López-Salido & Javier Vallés, 2007. "Understanding the Effects of Government Spending on Consumption," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 5(1), pages 227-270, March.
    16. Giovanni Angelini & Luca Fanelli, 2019. "Exogenous uncertainty and the identification of structural vector autoregressions with external instruments," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(6), pages 951-971, September.
    17. Carsten Jentsch & Kurt G. Lunsford, 2022. "Asymptotically Valid Bootstrap Inference for Proxy SVARs," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(4), pages 1876-1891, October.
    18. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2012. "Empirical Evidence on the Aggregate Effects of Anticipated and Unanticipated US Tax Policy Shocks," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 145-181, May.
    19. Fabio Canova & Mehdi Hamidi Sahneh, 2018. "Are Small-Scale SVARs Useful for Business Cycle Analysis? Revisiting Nonfundamentalness," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 1069-1093.
    20. Andrew Mountford & Harald Uhlig, 2009. "What are the effects of fiscal policy shocks?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(6), pages 960-992.
    21. Fabio Canova & Evi Pappa, 2007. "Price Differentials in Monetary Unions: The Role of Fiscal Shocks," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 117(520), pages 713-737, April.
    22. Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 2011. "When Is the Government Spending Multiplier Large?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 78-121.
    23. Eric M. Leeper & Nora Traum & Todd B. Walker, 2017. "Clearing Up the Fiscal Multiplier Morass," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(8), pages 2409-2454, August.
    24. Dario Caldara & Christophe Kamps, 2017. "The Analytics of SVARs: A Unified Framework to Measure Fiscal Multipliers," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(3), pages 1015-1040.
    25. Evans, Charles L., 1992. "Productivity shocks and real business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 191-208, April.
    26. Hussain, Syed Muhammad, 2015. "The contractionary effects of tax shocks on productivity: An empirical and theoretical analysis," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 93-107.
    27. Mertens, Karel & Ravn, Morten O., 2014. "A reconciliation of SVAR and narrative estimates of tax multipliers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(S), pages 1-19.
    28. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2018. "Identification and Estimation of Dynamic Causal Effects in Macroeconomics Using External Instruments," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(610), pages 917-948, May.
    29. Eric M. Leeper & Todd B. Walker & Shu‐Chun Susan Yang, 2013. "Fiscal Foresight and Information Flows," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(3), pages 1115-1145, May.
    30. 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.
    31. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2013. "Output Spillovers from Fiscal Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 141-146, May.
    32. Eric M. Leeper & Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 1996. "What Does Monetary Policy Do?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(2), pages 1-78.
    33. Hamilton, James D., 2003. "What is an oil shock?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 113(2), pages 363-398, April.
    34. Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Valentina Colombo & Gabriela Nodari, 2015. "Estimating Fiscal Multipliers: News From A Non‐linear World," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0(584), pages 746-776, May.
    35. Jonas E. Arias & Juan F. Rubio‐Ramírez & Daniel F. Waggoner, 2018. "Inference Based on Structural Vector Autoregressions Identified With Sign and Zero Restrictions: Theory and Applications," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(2), pages 685-720, March.
    36. Bachmann, Rüdiger & Sims, Eric R., 2012. "Confidence and the transmission of government spending shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 235-249.
    37. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    38. Ryan Chahrour & Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé & Martín Uribe, 2012. "A Model-Based Evaluation of the Debate on the Size of the Tax Multiplier," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 28-45, May.
    39. Roberto Perotti, 2012. "The Effects of Tax Shocks on Output: Not So Large, but Not Small Either," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 214-237, May.
    40. Barbara Rossi & Sarah Zubairy, 2011. "What Is the Importance of Monetary and Fiscal Shocks in Explaining U.S. Macroeconomic Fluctuations?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(6), pages 1247-1270, September.
    41. Mathias Klein & Ludger Linnemann, 2019. "Macroeconomic Effects of Government Spending: The Great Recession was (Really) Different," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(5), pages 1237-1264, August.
    42. JonasD.M. Fisher & Ryan Peters, 2010. "Using Stock Returns to Identify Government Spending Shocks," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(544), pages 414-436, May.
    43. J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), 2016. "Handbook of Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    44. Alberto Alesina & Carlo A. Favero & Francesco Giavazzi, 2018. "What Do We Know about the Effects of Austerity?," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 524-530, May.
    45. Carsten Jentsch & Kurt G. Lunsford, 2019. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(7), pages 2655-2678, July.
    46. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2019. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(7), pages 2679-2691, July.
    47. Valerie A. Ramey & Sarah Zubairy, 2018. "Government Spending Multipliers in Good Times and in Bad: Evidence from US Historical Data," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 850-901.
    48. Karel Mertens & Morten O. Ravn, 2018. "The Dynamic Effects of Personal and Corporate Income Tax Changes in the United States: Reply to Jentsch and Lunsford," Working Papers 1805, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
    49. Claude Giorno & Pete Richardson & Deborah Roseveare & Paul van den Noord, 1995. "Estimating Potential Output, Output Gaps and Structural Budget Balances," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 152, OECD Publishing.
    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. Allan W. Gregory & James McNeil & Gregor W. Smith, 2024. "US fiscal policy shocks: Proxy‐SVAR overidentification via GMM," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 607-619, June.
    2. Henri Keränen & Sakari Lähdemäki, 2020. "Identification of fiscal SVARs in small open economies using trading partner forecast errors as instruments," Working Papers 330, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.

    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. Giovanni Angelini & Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Luca Fanelli, 2020. "Are Fiscal Multipliers Estimated with Proxy-SVARs Robust?," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0257, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    2. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2020_013 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Efrem Castelnuovo & Guay Lim, 2019. "What Do We Know About the Macroeconomic Effects of Fiscal Policy? A Brief Survey of the Literature on Fiscal Multipliers," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 52(1), pages 78-93, March.
    4. 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.
    5. Karamysheva, Madina, 2022. "How do fiscal adjustments work? An empirical investigation," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    6. 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.
    7. Choi, Sangyup & Shin, Junhyeok, 2023. "Household indebtedness and the macroeconomic effects of tax changes," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 22-52.
    8. Mertens, Karel & Ravn, Morten O., 2014. "A reconciliation of SVAR and narrative estimates of tax multipliers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(S), pages 1-19.
    9. Allan W. Gregory & James McNeil & Gregor W. Smith, 2024. "US fiscal policy shocks: Proxy‐SVAR overidentification via GMM," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(4), pages 607-619, June.
    10. Sims, Eric & Wolff, Jonathan, 2018. "The state-dependent effects of tax shocks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 57-85.
    11. Angelini, Giovanni & Cavaliere, Giuseppe & Fanelli, Luca, 2024. "An identification and testing strategy for proxy-SVARs with weak proxies," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 238(2).
    12. van der Wielen, Wouter, 2020. "The macroeconomic effects of tax changes: Evidence using real-time data for the European Union," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 302-321.
    13. Virkola, Tuomo, 2014. "Exchange Rate Regime, Fiscal Foresight and the Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy in a Small Open Economy," ETLA Reports 20, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    14. Rüth, Sebastian K. & Simon, Camilla, 2020. "How Do Income and the Debt Position of Households Propagate Public into Private Spending?," Working Papers 0676, University of Heidelberg, Department of Economics.
    15. Henri Keränen & Sakari Lähdemäki, 2020. "Identification of fiscal SVARs in small open economies using trading partner forecast errors as instruments," Working Papers 330, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    16. 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.
    17. Syed M. Hussain & Lin Liu, 2024. "Macroeconomic effects of discretionary tax changes in Canada: Evidence from a new narrative measure of tax shocks," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 57(1), pages 78-107, February.
    18. Kang, Jihye & Kim, Soyoung, 2022. "Government spending news and surprise shocks: It’s the timing and persistence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    19. Anh D. M. Nguyen & Luisanna Onnis & Raffaele Rossi, 2021. "The Macroeconomic Effects of Income and Consumption Tax Changes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 439-466, May.
    20. Giovanni Angelini & Luca Fanelli, 2019. "Exogenous uncertainty and the identification of structural vector autoregressions with external instruments," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(6), pages 951-971, September.
    21. Ruhollah Eskandari & Morteza Zamanian, 2023. "Heterogeneous responses to corporate marginal tax rates: Evidence from small and large firms," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(7), pages 1018-1047, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal multipliers; fiscal policy; identification; instruments; structural vector autoregressions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

    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:pad:wpaper:0257. 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: Raffaele Dei Campielisi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dspadit.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.