[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wiw/wus005/35834351.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Unemployment Risk and Discretionary Fiscal Spending

Author

Listed:
  • Grimaud, Alex
Abstract
This paper studies the effects of discretionary fiscal policy responses to adverse aggregate shocks. For this, I build a tractable model where households face idiosyncratic unemployment risk in a Search-and-Matching (SaM) labor market with explicit intensive and extensive employment margins. Focusing on the spending side of fiscal stimuli, I investigate transitory increases in Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits and public purchases. I show that the effects of transitory increases in fiscal spending largely depend on the state of the labor market and the type of adverse shock hitting the economy. At the aggregate level, the most welfare-improving fiscal stimuli appear to be rather small and over a long period. At the idiosyncratic level, welfare improvements are very unequally distributed. Front-loaded increases in fiscal spending may run into supply constraints and have important undesirable consequences. Fiscal stimuli through UI transfers are never Pareto efficient whereas fiscal stimuli through public purchases can be.

Suggested Citation

  • Grimaud, Alex, 2023. "Unemployment Risk and Discretionary Fiscal Spending," Department of Economics Working Paper Series 335, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    • Handle: RePEc:wiw:wus005:35834351
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research.wu.ac.at/en/publications/48a8c9d5-45c3-4ace-926d-d1a70a8326ec
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kory Kroft & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2016. "Should Unemployment Insurance Vary with the Unemployment Rate? Theory and Evidence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 83(3), pages 1092-1124.
    2. Albertini, Julien & Auray, Stéphane & Bouakez, Hafedh & Eyquem, Aurélien, 2021. "Taking off into the wind: Unemployment risk and state-Dependent government spending multipliers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 990-1007.
    3. Oh, Hyunseung & Reis, Ricardo, 2012. "Targeted transfers and the fiscal response to the great recession," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(S), pages 50-64.
    4. Greg Kaplan & Giovanni L. Violante, 2014. "A Model of the Consumption Response to Fiscal Stimulus Payments," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(4), pages 1199-1239, July.
    5. 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.
    6. Edouard Challe, 2020. "Uninsured Unemployment Risk and Optimal Monetary Policy in a Zero-Liquidity Economy," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 12(2), pages 241-283, April.
    7. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    8. Veronica Guerrieri & Guido Lorenzoni & Ludwig Straub & Iván Werning, 2022. "Macroeconomic Implications of COVID-19: Can Negative Supply Shocks Cause Demand Shortages?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 112(5), pages 1437-1474, May.
    9. Pascal Michaillat, 2014. "A Theory of Countercyclical Government Multiplier," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(1), pages 190-217, January.
    10. Ghassibe, Mishel & Zanetti, Francesco, 2022. "State dependence of fiscal multipliers: the source of fluctuations matters," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 1-23.
    11. Natalie Cox & Peter Ganong & Pascal Noel & Joseph Vavra & Arlene Wong & Diana Farrell & Fiona Greig & Erica Deadman, 2020. "Initial Impacts of the Pandemic on Consumer Behavior: Evidence from Linked Income, Spending, and Savings Data," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 51(2 (Summer), pages 35-82.
    12. Yoon J. Jo & Sarah Zubairy, 2021. "State dependent government spending multipliers: Downward nominal wage rigidity and sources of business cycle fluctuations," Working Papers 20210127-001, Texas A&M University, Department of Economics.
    13. Christoffel, Kai & Kuester, Keith, 2008. "Resuscitating the wage channel in models with unemployment fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(5), pages 865-887, July.
    14. Valerie A. Ramey, 2011. "Can Government Purchases Stimulate the Economy?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 673-685, September.
    15. Ganong, Peter & Noel, Pascal & Vavra, Joseph, 2020. "US unemployment insurance replacement rates during the pandemic," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 191(C).
    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. Mr. Tidiane Kinda & Andras Lengyel & Kaustubh Chahande, 2022. "Fiscal Multipliers During Pandemics," IMF Working Papers 2022/149, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Christian Bayer & Benjamin Born & Ralph Luetticke & Gernot J Müller, 2023. "The Coronavirus Stimulus Package: How Large is the Transfer Multiplier," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 133(652), pages 1318-1347.
    3. 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.
    4. Yoon J. Jo & Sarah Zubairy, 2021. "State dependent government spending multipliers: Downward nominal wage rigidity and sources of business cycle fluctuations," Working Papers 20210127-001, Texas A&M University, Department of Economics.
    5. 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).
    6. Kim, Hyeongwoo & Shao, Peng & Zhang, Shuwei, 2023. "Policy coordination and the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    7. Albertini, Julien & Auray, Stéphane & Bouakez, Hafedh & Eyquem, Aurélien, 2021. "Taking off into the wind: Unemployment risk and state-Dependent government spending multipliers," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 990-1007.
    8. Mario Di Serio & Matteo Fragetta & Emanuel Gasteiger & Giovanni Melina, 2022. "The Euro Area Government Spending Multiplier in Demand- and Supply-Driven Recessions," CESifo Working Paper Series 9678, CESifo.
    9. Alisdair McKay & Ricardo Reis, 2016. "The Role of Automatic Stabilizers in the U.S. Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 84, pages 141-194, January.
    10. 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.
    11. Gregory E. Givens, 2022. "Unemployment, Partial Insurance, And The Multiplier Effects Of Government Spending," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 63(2), pages 571-599, May.
    12. Jonathan A. Parker, 2011. "On Measuring the Effects of Fiscal Policy in Recessions," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 703-718, September.
    13. Peter Ganong & Fiona Greig & Max Liebeskind & Pascal Noel & Daniel Sullivan & Joseph Vavra, 2021. "Spending and Job Search Impacts of Expanded Unemployment Benefits: Evidence from Administrative Micro Data," Working Papers 2021-19, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    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. Kurt Mitman & Iourii Manovskii & Marcus Hagedorn, 2017. "The Fiscal Multiplier," 2017 Meeting Papers 1383, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Hackethal, Andreas & Weber, Annika, 2020. "Fiscal policies and household consumption during the COVID-19 pandemic: A review of early evidence," SAFE White Paper Series 76, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE.
    17. Alisdair McKay & Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2016. "The Power of Forward Guidance Revisited," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(10), pages 3133-3158, October.
    18. Luca Metelli & Kevin Pallara, 2020. "Fiscal space and the size of the fiscal multiplier," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1293, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Favero, Carlo A. & Giavazzi, Francesco & Alesina, Alberto & Paradisi, Matteo & Barbiero, Omar, 2017. "The effects of Fiscal Consolidations: Theory and Evidence," CEPR Discussion Papers 12016, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Grimaud, Alex, 2021. "Precautionary saving and un-anchored expectations," MPRA Paper 110651, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Search and matching; heterogeneous agents; UI transfers; unemployment risk; and fiscal spending;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

    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:wiw:wus005:35834351. 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: WU Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://research.wu.ac.at/ .

    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.