An empirical investigation of US fiscal expenditures and macroeconomic outcomes

In addition to containing stable information to explain inflation, state-local expenditures have also a larger share of the forecast error variance of US inflation than the Federal funds rate. Non-defense federal expenditures are useful in predicting real output variations and, starting from the early 1980s, present also a larger share of the forecast error variance of US real output than the Federal funds rate

US fiscal indicators, inflation and output

In this paper we explore the information content of a large set of fiscal indicators for US real output growth and inflation. We provide evidence that fluctuations in certain fiscal variables contain valuable information to predict fluctuations in output and prices. The distinction between federal and state-local fiscal indicators yields useful insights and helps define a new set of stylized facts for US macroeconomic conditions. First, we find that variations in state-local indirect taxes as well as state government surplus or deficit help predict output growth. Next, the federal counterparts of these indicators contain valuable information for inflation. Finally, state-local expenditures help predict US inflation. A set of formal and informal stability tests confirm that these relationships are stable. The fiscal indicators in questions are also among the ones that yield the best in-sample and out-of-sample performances

Fiscal policy and lending relationships

This paper studies how fiscal policy affects credit market conditions. First, it conducts a FAVAR analysis showing that the credit spread responds negatively to an expansionary government spending shock, while consumption, investment, and lending increase. Second, it illustrates that these results are not mimicked by a DSGE model where the credit spread is endogenized via the inclusion of a banking sector exploiting lending relationships. Third, it demonstrates that introducing deep habits in private and government consumption makes the model able to replicate empirics. Sensitivity checks and extensions show that core results hold for a number of model calibrations and specifications. The presence of banks exploiting lending relationships generates a financial accelerator effect in the transmission of fiscal shocks

Identification of Monetary Policy in SVAR Models: A Data-Oriented Perspective

This paper applies graphical modelling theory to recover identifying restrictions for the analysis of monetary policy shocks in a VAR of the US economy. Results are in line with the view that only high-frequency data should be assumed to be in the information set of the monetary authority when the interest rate decision is taken.Monetary policy; SVAR; Graphical modelling

A Fiscal Stimulus and Jobless Recovery

We analyse the effects of a government spending expansion in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with Mortensen-Pissarides labour market frictions, deep habits and a constant-elasticity-of-substitution (CES) production function. The combination of deep habits and CES technology is crucial. The presence of deep habits enables the model to deliver output and unemployment multipliers in the high range of recent empirical estimates, while an elasticity of substitution between capital and labour in the range of available estimates allows it to produce a scenario compatible with the observed jobless recovery. An accommodative monetary policy with respect to the output gap alongside sticky prices plays an important role for the stabilisation properties of the fiscal stimulus.Fiscal policy; deep habits; labour market search-match frictions; unemployment; CES production function

Monetary Policy and the Relative Price of Durable Goods

In a VAR model of the US, the response of the relative price of durables to a monetary contraction is either flat or mildly positive. It significantly falls only if narrowly defined as the ratio between new house and nondurables prices. These findings survive three identification strategies and across subsamples. Then, they are rationalized via the estimation of a two-sector New-Keynesian model. Here, the degree of overall durables price stickiness is not dramatically lower than that of nondurables. Such macroeconometric results are close to recent microeconometric evidence. Moreover, they suggest that monetary policy is not very distortive of sectoral allocations

A Fiscal Stimulus with Deep Habits and Optimal Monetary Policy

A New-Keynesian model with deep habits and optimal monetary policy delivers a fiscal multiplier above one and the crowding-in effect on private consumption obtainable in a Real Business Cycle model à la Ravn et al. (2006). Optimized Taylor-type or price-level interest rate rules yield results close to optimal policy and dominate a conventional Taylor interest rate rule. Private consumption is crowded out only if the Taylor rule is sub-optimal and then negates the fiscal stimulus by responding strongly to the output gap, or if the ability to commit is absent. At the zero lower bound private consumption is always crowded in across simple rules.Deep habits, Optimal monetary policy, Price-level rule, Zero lower bound

Investigating the construction methods of an opus vermiculatum mosaic panel

From the third century BC to the second century AD small detailed central panels (emblemata) made using the opus vermiculatum technique were used as focal points in larger mosaic pavements. They were custom made in stone or terracotta trays to facilitate their transport and placement. Although mosaic panels in opus vermiculatum have been discovered throughout the Hellenistic and Roman Mediterranean, the location of the workshops specialising in the production of the finely worked panels is still unclear. Their association with named artists, for example Dioskourides of Samos, and the locations of finds (such as the fragments of the floor by Hephaistion at Pergamon) point to workshops in the eastern Mediterranean. A large unidentified fragment of an emblema, still in its terracotta tray, from the collections of the Department of Greece and Rome in the British Museum was the subject of analytical examination. These investigations of the tesserae (glass cubes), traces of pigments and mortar aimed to determine the raw materials and manufacturing processes for the mosaic and to characterise the nature of the application of paint to the mortar. Egyptian blue pigment and traces of hematite and carbon suggest that a fully coloured drawing was executed on the fresh mortar to guide the positioning of the tesserae. In addition, samples from the terracotta tray were taken in an attempt to identify its provenance. This contribution describes how the results of these investigations have been used to provide a deeper understanding of opus vermiculatum construction methods

Sectoral Labor Mobility and Optimal Monetary Policy

How should central banks optimally aggregate sectoral inflation rates in the presence of imperfect labor mobility across sectors? We study this issue in a two-sector New-Keynesian model and show that a lower degree of sectoral labor mobility, ceteris paribus, increases the optimal weight on inflation in a sector that would otherwise receive a lower weight. We analytically and numerically find that, with limited labor mobility, adjustment to asymmetric shocks cannot fully occur through the reallocation of labor, thus putting more pressure on wages, causing inefficient movements in relative prices, and creating scope for central banks intervention. These findings challenge standard central banks practice of computing sectoral inflation weights based solely on sector size, and unveil a significant role for the degree of sectoral labor mobility to play in the optimal computation. In an extended estimated model of the U.S. economy, featuring customary frictions and shocks, the estimated inflation weights imply a decrease in welfare up to 10 percent relative to the case of optimal weights

Macroeconomic implications of fiscal policy

2008-2009This thesis investigates the macroeconomics e ects of scal policy from a theoretical and empirical perspective. The rst part of the thesis surveys recent theoretical and empirical studies in the related literature. The analysis shows that while consensus has emerged on the positive e ect that an expansionary scal policy has on output and hours worked, no widespread consensus exists on the e ects that such a policy delivers to private consumption, real wages and investment. While in standard RBC models the negative wealth e ect on households' lifetime resource constraint prevails, in more or less articulated new-Keynesian models a crowding-in e ect of consumption and an increase in wages is made possible also under plausible calibrations. While early empirical contributions gave credit to the standard neoclassical predictions, the most recent econometric applications, generally making use of structural VARs, have supported and in many cases have inspired the latest new-Keynesian claims. Next, this work applies graphical modelling theory to identify scal policy shocks in SVAR models of the US economy. Unlike other econometric approaches { which achieve identi cation by relying on potentially contentious a priori assumptions { graphical modelling is a data based tool. Our results are in line with Keynesian theoretical models, being also quantitatively similar to those obtained in the recent SVAR literature a la Blanchard and Perotti (2002), and contrast with neoclassical real business cycle predictions. Stability checks con rm that our ndings are not driven by sample selection. In its nal part, the thesis empirically explores the information content of a large set of scal indicators for US real output growth and in ation. We provide evidence that uctuations in certain scal variables contain valuable information to predict uctuations in output and prices. The distinction between federal and state-local scal indicators yields useful insights and helps de ne a new set of stylized facts for US macroeconomic conditions. First, we nd that variations in state-local indirect taxes as well as state government surplus or de cit help predict output growth. Next, the federal counterparts of these indicators contain valuable information for in ation. Finally, state-local expenditures help predict US in ation. A set of formal and informal stability tests con rm that these relationships are stable. The scal indicators in questions are also among theones that yield the best in-sample and out-of-sample performances.VIII n.s