IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ulb/ulbeco/2013-174323.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Government Size and Output Volatility: Should We Forsake Automatic Stabilization ?

Author

Listed:
  • André Sapir
  • Xavier Debrun

Abstract

The paper takes stock of the debate on the positive link between output volatility and the size of government-which reflects automatic stabilizers. After a survey of the literature, we show that the contribution of automatic stabilizers to output stability may have disappeared since the 1990s. However, econometric analysis suggests that the breakdown in the government size-volatility relationship largely reflects temporary developments (better monetary management and financial intermediation). Once these factors are taken into account, the stabilizing role of government size remains important although little extra stability can be gained by expanding public expenditure beyond 40 percent of GDP.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • André Sapir & Xavier Debrun, 2010. "Government Size and Output Volatility: Should We Forsake Automatic Stabilization ?," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/174323, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:ulb:ulbeco:2013/174323
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2008. "Explaining The Great Moderation: It Is Not The Shocks," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(2-3), pages 621-633, 04-05.
    2. Fatas, Antonio & Mihov, Ilian, 2001. "Government size and automatic stabilizers: international and intranational evidence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(1), pages 3-28, October.
    3. Olivier Blanchard & John Simon, 2001. "The Long and Large Decline in U.S. Output Volatility," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(1), pages 135-174.
    4. Galí, Jordi & Perotti, Roberto, 2003. "Fiscal Policy and Monetary Integration in Europe," CEPR Discussion Papers 3933, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. M Ayhan Kose & Eswar Prasad & Kenneth Rogoff & Shang-Jin Wei, 2009. "Financial Globalization: A Reappraisal," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 56(1), pages 8-62, April.
    6. Marco Buti & Carlos Martinez-Mongay & Khalid Sekkat & Paul van den Noord, 2003. "Automatic Fiscal Stabilisers in EMU: A Conflict between Efficiency and Stabilisation?," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 49(1), pages 123-140.
    7. Andres, Javier & Domenech, Rafael & Fatas, Antonio, 2008. "The stabilizing role of government size," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 571-593, February.
    8. Gali, Jordi, 1994. "Government size and macroeconomic stability," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 117-132, January.
    9. Tanzi,Vito & Schuknecht,Ludger, 2000. "Public Spending in the 20th Century," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521662918.
    10. André Sapir & Marco Buti, 1998. "Economic policy in EMU," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/8078, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    11. Otrok, Christopher, 2001. "On measuring the welfare cost of business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 61-92, February.
    12. Emerson, Michael & Gros, Daniel & Italianer, Alexander & ,, 1992. "One Market, One Money: An Evaluation of the Potential Benefits and Costs of Forming an Economic and Monetary Union," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198773245.
    13. Sapir, Andre & Aghion, Philippe & Bertola, Giuseppe & Hellwig, Martin & Pisani-Ferry, Jean & Rosati, Dariusz & Vinals, Jose & Wallace, Helen, 2004. "An Agenda for a Growing Europe: The Sapir Report," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199271498.
    14. Dani Rodrik, 1998. "Why Do More Open Economies Have Bigger Governments?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(5), pages 997-1032, October.
    15. Christina D. Romer, 1999. "Changes in Business Cycles: Evidence and Explanations," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 13(2), pages 23-44, Spring.
    16. Carlos Martinez-Mongay & Khalid Sekkat, 2005. "Progressive Taxation, Macroeconomic Stabilization and efficiency in Europe," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 233, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    17. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages 103-126, October.
    18. de la Fuente, Angel, 1997. "Fiscal Policy and Growth in the OECD," CEPR Discussion Papers 1755, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    19. Nathalie Girouard & Christophe André, 2005. "Measuring Cyclically-adjusted Budget Balances for OECD Countries," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 434, OECD Publishing.
    20. Ramey, Garey & Ramey, Valerie A, 1995. "Cross-Country Evidence on the Link between Volatility and Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1138-1151, December.
    21. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    22. Schuknecht, Ludger & Ebert, Werner & Thöne, Michael & Afonso, António, 2005. "Quality of public finances and growth," Working Paper Series 438, European Central Bank.
    23. Philippe Aghion & George-Marios Angeletos & Abhijit Banerjee & Kalina Manova, 2005. "Volatility and Growth: Credit Constraints and Productivity-Enhancing Investment," NBER Working Papers 11349, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "Has The U.S. Economy Become More Stable? A Bayesian Approach Based On A Markov-Switching Model Of The Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 608-616, November.
    25. Jordi Galí & Roberto Perotti, 2003. "Fiscal policy and monetary integration in Europe [‘Consumption smoothing through fiscal policy in OECD and EU countries’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 18(37), pages 533-572.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Philippe Aghion & David Hemous & Enisse Kharroubi, 2009. "Credit Constraints, Cyclical Fiscal Policy and Industry Growth," NBER Working Papers 15119, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Martin Iseringhausen & Hauke Vierke, 2019. "What Drives Output Volatility? The Role of Demographics and Government Size Revisited," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 81(4), pages 849-867, August.
    3. Afonso, António & Furceri, Davide, 2010. "Government size, composition, volatility and economic growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 517-532, December.
    4. Erauskin, Iñaki, 2013. "The impact of financial openness on the size of utility-enhancing government," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 7, pages 1-56.
    5. Javier Andrés & Rafael Doménech, 2006. "Fiscal Rules and Macroeconomic Stability," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 176(1), pages 9-41, April.
    6. Irene Brunetti & Davide Fiaschi & Lisa Gianmoena & Angela Parenti, 2017. "Volatility in European regions," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 96(4), pages 697-720, November.
    7. Davide fiaschi & Lisa Gianmoena & Angela Parenti, 2013. "The Determinants of Growth Rate Volatility in European Regions," Discussion Papers 2013/170, Dipartimento di Economia e Management (DEM), University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.
    8. Harald Badinger, 2008. "Cyclical Fiscal Policy, Output Volatility, and Economic Growth," CESifo Working Paper Series 2268, CESifo.
    9. Aghion, Philippe & Hémous, David & Kharroubi, Enisse, 2014. "Cyclical fiscal policy, credit constraints, and industry growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C), pages 41-58.
    10. Douglas Sutherland & Peter Hoeller & Balázs Égert & Oliver Röhn, 2010. "Counter-cyclical Economic Policy," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 760, OECD Publishing.
    11. Dolls, Mathias & Fuest, Clemens & Peichl, Andreas, 2012. "Automatic stabilizers and economic crisis: US vs. Europe," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 279-294.
    12. Şen, Hüseyin & Kaya, Ayşe, 2021. "Output-volatility reducing effects of automatic stabilizers: Policy implications for EMU member states," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(6), pages 1388-1414.
    13. Erauskin, Iñaki, 2015. "The net foreign asset position and government size," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 130-148.
    14. Solomos, Dionysios & Papageorgiou, Theofanis & Koumparoulis, Dimitrios, 2012. "Financial Sector and Business Cycles Determinants in the EMU context: An Empirical Approach (1996-2011)," MPRA Paper 43858, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Reicher, Claire, 2014. "Systematic fiscal policy and macroeconomic performance: A critical overview of the literature," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-37.
    16. Dolls, Mathias & Fuest, Clemens & Kock, Jan & Peichl, Andreas & Wehrhöfer, Nils & Wittneben, Christian, 2014. "Abschlussbericht zu Forschungsvorhaben fe 5/14: "Automatic stabilizers in the Eurozone: Analysis of their effectiveness at the member state and euro area level and in international comparison&quo," ZEW Expertises, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, number 111444, June.
    17. Jérôme Creel & Francesco Saraceno, 2008. "Automatic Stabilisation, Discretionary Policy and the Stability Pact," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-00973049, HAL.
    18. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:8:y:2006:i:11:p:1-11 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Charl Jooste & Marina Marinkov, 2012. "South Africa'S Transition To A Consolidated Budget," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 80(2), pages 181-199, June.
    20. Hans Pitlik & Margit Schratzenstaller-Altzinger, 2011. "Growth Implications of Structure and Size of Public Sectors," WIFO Working Papers 404, WIFO.
    21. Sacchi, Agnese & Salotti, Simone, 2015. "The impact of national fiscal rules on the stabilisation function of fiscal policy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 1-20.

    More about this item

    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:ulb:ulbeco:2013/174323. 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: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecsulbe.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.