IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/qld/uq2004/609.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Saving Constraints, Debt, and the Credit Market Response to Fiscal Stimulus: Theory and Cross-Country Evidence

Author

Listed:

Abstract

We document that the interest rate response to fiscal stimulus is lower in countries with high inequality or high household debt. To interpret this evidence we develop a model in which households take on debt to maintain a minimum consumption threshold. Now debt-burdened, these households use additional income to deleverage. In economies with more debt-burdened households, increases in government spending tighten credit conditions less (relax credit conditions more), leading to smaller increases (larger declines) in the interest rate. To validate our mechanism we confirm that the pre-Global Financial Crisis consumption response to fiscal stimulus is lower in countries with high inequality or household debt and in U.S. counties with high household debt. An implication of our theoretical and empirical results is that the sign of the debt-dependence of the effects of fiscal stimulus varies with credit conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Jorge Miranda-Pinto & Daniel Murphy & Kieran James Walsh & Eric R. Young, 2019. "Saving Constraints, Debt, and the Credit Market Response to Fiscal Stimulus: Theory and Cross-Country Evidence," Discussion Papers Series 609, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:qld:uq2004:609
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economics.uq.edu.au/files/46400/609.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    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. Romanos Priftis & Srec̆ko Zimic, 2021. "Sources of Borrowing and Fiscal Multipliers [Emerging market business cycles: the cycle is the trend]," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 131(633), pages 498-519.
    3. Brinca, Pedro & Holter, Hans A. & Krusell, Per & Malafry, Laurence, 2016. "Fiscal multipliers in the 21st century," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 53-69.
    4. 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.
    5. Fernando Broner & Daragh Clancy & Aitor Erce & Alberto Martin, 2022. "Fiscal Multipliers and Foreign Holdings of Public Debt," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(3), pages 1155-1204.
    6. Claudia R. Sahm & Matthew D. Shapiro & Joel Slemrod, 2015. "Balance-Sheet Households and Fiscal Stimulus: Lessons from the Payroll Tax Cut and Its Expiration," NBER Working Papers 21220, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Raj Chetty & Adam Szeidl, 2007. "Consumption Commitments and Risk Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 831-877.
    8. Jappelli, Tullio & Pagano, Marco, 1989. "Consumption and Capital Market Imperfections: An International Comparison," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(5), pages 1088-1105, December.
    9. Barro, Robert J., 1987. "Government spending, interest rates, prices, and budget deficits in the United Kingdom, 1701-1918," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 221-247, September.
    10. Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri, 2014. "Fiscal Policy and MPC Heterogeneity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 107-136, October.
    11. S. Rao Aiyagari, 1994. "Uninsured Idiosyncratic Risk and Aggregate Saving," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 659-684.
    12. 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.
    13. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2013. "Output Spillovers from Fiscal Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 141-146, May.
    14. Giancarlo Corsetti & André Meier & Gernot J. Müller, 2012. "What determines government spending multipliers? [Mafia and public spending: Evidence of the fiscal multiplier from a quasi-experiment’, mimeo]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 27(72), pages 521-565.
    15. Ilzetzki, Ethan & Mendoza, Enrique G. & Végh, Carlos A., 2013. "How big (small?) are fiscal multipliers?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 239-254.
    16. Lewis, Jeffrey B. & Linzer, Drew A., 2005. "Estimating Regression Models in Which the Dependent Variable Is Based on Estimates," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(4), pages 345-364.
    17. Kanishka Misra & Paolo Surico, 2014. "Consumption, Income Changes, and Heterogeneity: Evidence from Two Fiscal Stimulus Programs," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 84-106, October.
    18. Lane, Philip R. & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 2007. "The external wealth of nations mark II: Revised and extended estimates of foreign assets and liabilities, 1970-2004," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 223-250, November.
    19. Emi Nakamura & J?n Steinsson, 2014. "Fiscal Stimulus in a Monetary Union: Evidence from US Regions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(3), pages 753-792, March.
    20. 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.
    21. 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.
    22. Gauti B. Eggertsson & Paul Krugman, 2012. "Debt, Deleveraging, and the Liquidity Trap: A Fisher-Minsky-Koo Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 127(3), pages 1469-1513.
    23. 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.
    24. 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.
    25. Carare, Alina & Stone, Mark R., 2006. "Inflation targeting regimes," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 1297-1315, July.
    26. Lane, Philip & Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, "undated". "External Wealth of Nations," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics extwealth, Boston College Department of Economics.
    27. Faccini, Renato & Mumtaz, Haroon & Surico, Paolo, 2016. "International fiscal spillovers," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 31-45.
    28. Lorenz Kueng, 2018. "Excess Sensitivity of High-Income Consumers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(4), pages 1693-1751.
    29. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Daniel Murphy, 2019. "Local Fiscal Multipliers and Fiscal Spillovers in the United States," NBER Working Papers 25457, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    30. Yuliya Demyanyk & Elena Loutskina & Daniel Murphy, 2019. "Fiscal Stimulus and Consumer Debt," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 728-741, October.
    31. Ravn, Morten O. & Schmitt-Grohé, Stephanie & Uribe, Martín, 2012. "Consumption, government spending, and the real exchange rate," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 215-234.
    32. Huggett, Mark, 1993. "The risk-free rate in heterogeneous-agent incomplete-insurance economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(5-6), pages 953-969.
    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. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko & Daniel Murphy, 2020. "Effects of Fiscal Policy on Credit Markets," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 119-124, May.
    2. 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.
    3. Jorge Miranda-Pinto & Daniel Murphy & Eric Young & Kieran Walsh, 2019. "Saving-Constrained Households," 2019 Meeting Papers 1456, Society for Economic Dynamics.

    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. Jorge Miranda-Pinto & Daniel P. Murphy & Kieran Walsh & Eric Young, 2020. "Saving Constraints, Debt, and the Credit Market Response to Fiscal Stimulus," Working Papers 20-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    2. Miranda-Pinto, Jorge & Murphy, Daniel & Walsh, Kieran James & Young, Eric R., 2023. "Saving constraints, inequality, and the credit market response to fiscal stimulus," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    3. Jorge Miranda-Pinto & Daniel Murphy & Eric Young & Kieran Walsh, 2018. "Debt Burdens and the Interest Rate Response to Fiscal Stimulus: Theory and Cross-Country Evidence," 2018 Meeting Papers 936, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Salvatore Perdichizzi, 2017. "Estimating Fiscal multipliers in the Eurozone. A Nonlinear Panel Data Approach," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def058, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    7. Andrea Boitani & Salvatore Perdichizzi, 2018. "Public Expenditure Multipliers in recessions. Evidence from the Eurozone," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def068, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    8. Atems, Bebonchu, 2019. "The effects of government spending shocks: Evidence from U.S. states," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 65-80.
    9. Cardi, Olivier & Restout, Romain, 2023. "Sectoral fiscal multipliers and technology in open economy," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    10. 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.
    11. Christian Bredemeier & Falko Juessen & Roland Winkler, 2020. "Fiscal Policy and Occupational Employment Dynamics," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(6), pages 1527-1563, September.
    12. Sebastian Gechert & Ansgar Rannenberg, 2014. "Are Fiscal Multipliers Regime-Dependent? A Meta Regression Analysis," IMK Working Paper 139-2014, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    13. Hory, Marie-Pierre, 2016. "Fiscal multipliers in Emerging Market Economies: Can we learn something from Advanced Economies?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 59-84.
    14. Berge, Travis & De Ridder, Maarten & Pfajfar, Damjan, 2021. "When is the fiscal multiplier high? A comparison of four business cycle phases," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    15. Klein, Mathias & Polattimur, Hamza & Winkler, Roland, 2022. "Fiscal spending multipliers over the household leverage cycle," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    16. El Mostafa Bentour, 2022. "The effects of public debt accumulation and business cycle on government spending multipliers," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(19), pages 2231-2256, April.
    17. Auerbach, Alan & Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & McCrory, Peter B. & Murphy, Daniel, 2022. "Fiscal multipliers in the COVID19 recession," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    18. Giovanni Angelini & Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Luca Fanelli, 2023. "Are Fiscal Multipliers Estimated with Proxy‐SVARs Robust?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 85(1), pages 95-122, February.
    19. George Chouliarakis & Tadeusz Gwiazdowski & Sophia Lazaretou, 2016. "The Effect of Fiscal Policy on Output in Times of Crisis and Prosperity: Historical Evidence From Greece ," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 230, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    20. Rüth, Sebastian K. & Simon, Camilla, 2022. "How do income and the debt position of households propagate fiscal stimulus into consumption?," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    interest rates; fiscal stimulus; household debt; inequality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • 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:qld:uq2004:609. 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: SOE IT (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decuqau.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.