Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Policy Changes: International Evidence and the Swedish Experience

50 Pages Posted: 15 Jul 2000 Last revised: 29 Jul 2022

See all articles by Francesco Giavazzi

Francesco Giavazzi

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); University of Bocconi - Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Marco Pagano

CSEF - University of Naples Federico II - Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF); Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF); Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN); Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR); European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

Date Written: November 1995

Abstract

In earlier work we documented two episodes in which a sharp fiscal consolidation was associated with a very large expansions in private domestic demand. In this paper we draw on further evidence to investigate if and when fiscal policy changes can have such non-Keynesian effects. In the first part of the paper, we analyze cross-country data for 19 OECD countries. In the second, we concentrate on the Swedish fiscal expansion of the early 1990s. The cross-country evidence on private consumption confirms that fiscal policy changes - both contractions and expansions - can have non-Keynesian effects if they are sufficiently large and persistent, and suggests that these effects can result not only from changes in public consumption but to some extent also from changes in taxes and transfers. The latter result is consistent with the Swedish experience where a decrease in net taxes (with almost no change in public consumption) was associated with a dramatic fall in private domestic demand. Our evidence and that from other studies agree that during the Swedish fiscal expansion of the early 1990s a large negative error appears in the consumption function. There is less consensus about how this error should be interpreted, but it is clear that the most obvious candidates (wealth effects and after-tax real interest rate effects) are not sufficient to explain it. This error may reflect a large downward revision of permanent disposable income, which affected the consumption of Swedish households over and beyond the negative effects of the drop in real asset prices. We suggest that this revision in permanent income may have been triggered, at least partly, by the fiscal expansion of the early 1990s.

Suggested Citation

Giavazzi, Francesco and Giavazzi, Francesco and Pagano, Marco, Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Policy Changes: International Evidence and the Swedish Experience (November 1995). NBER Working Paper No. w5332, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=225396

Francesco Giavazzi (Contact Author)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

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University of Bocconi - Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER) ( email )

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Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

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Marco Pagano

CSEF - University of Naples Federico II - Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF) ( email )

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Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF)

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Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

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European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI)

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Belgium

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