IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rif/wpaper/33.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The EU’s Fiscal Targets and Their Economic Impact in Finland

Author

Listed:
  • Keränen, Henri
  • Kuusi, Tero

Abstract

In this paper, we quantify time-varying fiscal multipliers using Finnish economic data and address questions about the design of the fiscal adjustment currently needed to comply with the EU's fiscal targets. We find that the necessary adjustment is likely to be larger than what is proposed in the current fiscal plans. The consolidation measures slow the economic recovery, and their cumulative multiplier effect on economic activity is close to 1 in the period 2016-2019. Despite the large fiscal multipliers, we do not find significant benefits in delaying the fiscal consolidation in terms of the present value of the GDP, at least given the current economic forecasts. Our results suggest that the emphasis of the government's fiscal plans on net revenue measures (defined as gross revenues minus transfers) seems to be well-placed.

Suggested Citation

  • Keränen, Henri & Kuusi, Tero, 2016. "The EU’s Fiscal Targets and Their Economic Impact in Finland," ETLA Working Papers 33, The Research Institute of the Finnish Economy.
    • Handle: RePEc:rif:wpaper:33
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.etla.fi/wp-content/uploads/ETLA-Working-Papers-33.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. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2014. "News-Driven Business Cycles: Insights and Challenges," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(4), pages 993-1074, December.
    3. 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.
    4. Alan J. Auerbach & Yuriy Gorodnichenko, 2012. "Fiscal Multipliers in Recession and Expansion," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis, pages 63-98, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. 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.
    6. Giovanni Caggiano & Efrem Castelnuovo & Valentina Colombo & Gabriela Nodari, 2014. "Estimating fiscal multipliers: evidence from a nonlinear world," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0179, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Olivier J. Blanchard & Daniel Leigh, 2013. "Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 117-120, May.
    10. Roberto Perotti, 2005. "Estimating the effects of fiscal policy in OECD countries," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    11. Michael T. Owyang & Valerie A. Ramey & Sarah Zubairy, 2013. "Are government spending multipliers greater during periods of slack? evidence from 20th century historical data," Working Papers 2013-004, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    12. Robert Price & Thai-Thanh Dang & Yvan Guillemette, 2014. "New Tax and Expenditure Elasticity Estimates for EU Budget Surveillance," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1174, OECD Publishing.
    13. Markku Lehmus, 2015. "Finnish fiscal multipliers with a structural VAR model," Working Papers 293, Työn ja talouden tutkimus LABORE, The Labour Institute for Economic Research LABORE.
    14. Michael T. Owyang & Valerie A. Ramey & Sarah Zubairy, 2013. "Are Government Spending Multipliers Greater during Periods of Slack? Evidence from Twentieth-Century Historical Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 129-134, May.
    15. Łukasz Rawdanowicz, 2014. "Choosing the pace of fiscal consolidation," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2013(1), pages 91-119.
    16. Perotti, Roberto, 2005. "Estimating the Effects of Fiscal Policy in OECD Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 4842, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. 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.
    18. Michael Woodford, 2011. "Simple Analytics of the Government Expenditure Multiplier," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(1), pages 1-35, January.
    19. Nicoletta Batini & Luc Eyraud & Lorenzo Forni & Anke Weber, 2014. "Fiscal Multipliers; Size, Determinants, and Use in Macroeconomic Projections," IMF Technical Notes and Manuals 14/04, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Valerie A. Ramey, 2011. "Can Government Purchases Stimulate the Economy?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 673-685, September.
    21. Mr. Kevin Fletcher & Mr. Damiano Sandri, 2015. "How Delaying Fiscal Consolidation Affects the Present Value of GDP," IMF Working Papers 2015/052, International Monetary Fund.
    22. 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.
    23. Òscar Jordà, 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 161-182, March.
    24. Nicoletta Batini & Mr. Luc Eyraud & Lorenzo Forni & Miss Anke Weber, 2014. "Fiscal Multipliers: Size, Determinants, and Use in Macroeconomic Projections," IMF Technical Notes and Manuals 2014/004, International Monetary Fund.
    25. 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.
    26. J. Bradford DeLong & Lawrence H. Summers, 2012. "Fiscal Policy in a Depressed Economy," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 43(1 (Spring), pages 233-297.
    27. Valerie Ramey & Sarah Zubairy & Michael Owyang, 2013. "Are Government Spending Multipliers State Dependent? Evidence from U.S. and Canadian Historical Data," 2013 Meeting Papers 290, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    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. Kuusi, Tero, 2018. "Does the structural budget balance guide fiscal policy pro-cyclically? Evidence from the Finnish Great Depression of the 1990s," MPRA Paper 84829, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. 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.
    2. Mario Di Serio & Matteo Fragetta & Emanuel Gasteiger, 2020. "The Government Spending Multiplier at the Zero Lower Bound: Evidence from the United States," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 82(6), pages 1262-1294, December.
    3. Marco Bernardini & Selien De Schryder & Gert Peersman, 2020. "Heterogeneous Government Spending Multipliers in the Era Surrounding the Great Recession," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 102(2), pages 304-322, May.
    4. José U Mora & Rafael A Acevedo, 2018. "Modelo de Desarrollo Propio y su Potencial para la Construcción de Paz Territorial," Working Papers 39, Faculty of Economics and Management, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali.
    5. 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).
    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. Mario Alloza, 2014. "Is Fiscal Policy More Effective in Uncertain Times or During Recessions?," Discussion Papers 1631, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM), revised Oct 2016.
    8. Dell'Erba, Salvatore & Koloskova, Ksenia & Poplawski-Ribeiro, Marcos, 2018. "Medium-term fiscal multipliers during protracted economic contractions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 35-52.
    9. Mathias Klein & Roland Winkler, 2021. "The government spending multiplier at the zero lower bound: International evidence from historical data," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(6), pages 744-759, September.
    10. Bijie Jia & Hyeongwoo Kim, 2015. "Government Spending Shocks and Private Acitivity: The Role of Sentiments," Auburn Economics Working Paper Series auwp2015-02, Department of Economics, Auburn University.
    11. Favero, Carlo A. & Karamysheva, Madina, 2015. "What Do We Know About Fiscal Multipliers?," CEPR Discussion Papers 10986, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Regis Barnichon & Davide Debortoli & Christian Matthes, 2022. "Understanding the Size of the Government Spending Multiplier: It’s in the Sign," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(1), pages 87-117.
    13. Charles J. Whalen & Felix Reichling, 2015. "The Fiscal Multiplier And Economic Policy Analysis In The United States," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(4), pages 735-746, October.
    14. Felix Reichling & Charles Whalen, 2015. "The Fiscal Multiplier and Economic Policy Analysis in the United States: Working Paper 2015-02," Working Papers 49925, Congressional Budget Office.
    15. Marco Bernardini & Gert Peersman, 2018. "Private debt overhang and the government spending multiplier: Evidence for the United States," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(4), pages 485-508, June.
    16. Borsi, Mihály Tamás, 2018. "Fiscal multipliers across the credit cycle," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 135-151.
    17. Bi, Huixin & Shen, Wenyi & Yang, Shu-Chun S., 2016. "Debt-dependent effects of fiscal expansions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 142-157.
    18. 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.
    19. 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).
    20. AMENDOLA, Adalgiso & DI SERIO, Mario & FRAGETTA, Matteo, 2018. "The Government Spending Multiplier at the Zero Lower Bound: Evidence from the Euro Area," CELPE Discussion Papers 153, CELPE - CEnter for Labor and Political Economics, University of Salerno, Italy.

    More about this item

    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:rif:wpaper:33. 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: Kaija Hyvönen-Rajecki (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/etlaafi.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.