Search Results
Working Paper
The Nonlinear Effects of Fiscal Policy
We argue that the fiscal multiplier of government purchases is nonlinear in the spending shock, in contrast to what is assumed in most of the literature. In particular, the multiplier of a fiscal consolidation is decreasing in the size of the consolidation. We empirically document this fact using aggregate fiscal consolidation data across 15 OECD countries. We show that a neoclassical life-cycle, incomplete markets model calibrated to match key features of the U.S. economy can explain this empirical finding. The mechanism hinges on the relationship between fiscal shocks, their form of ...
Working Paper
The Nonlinear Effects of Fiscal Policy
We argue that the fiscal multiplier of government purchases is nonlinear in the size of the spending shock. In particular, the multiplier is increasing in the spending shock, with more expansionary government spending shocks generating larger multipliers and more contractionary shocks generating smaller multipliers. We document that empirically this holds true across time, countries and types of shocks. We then propose a neoclassical mechanism that hinges on the relationship between fiscal shocks, their form of financing, and the response of labor supply across the wealth distribution. A ...
Working Paper
Perturbation methods for Markov-switching DSGE models
Markov-switching DSGE (MSDSGE) modeling has become a growing body of literature on economic and policy issues related to structural shifts. This paper develops a general perturbation methodology for constructing high-order approximations to the solutions of MSDSGE models. Our new method, called "the partition perturbation method," partitions the Markov-switching parameter space to keep a maximum number of time-varying parameters from perturbation. For this method to work in practice, we show how to reduce the potentially intractable problem of solving MSDSGE models to the manageable problem ...
Working Paper
The Nonlinear Effects of Fiscal Policy
We argue that the fiscal multiplier of government purchases is increasing in the spending shock, in contrast to what is assumed in most of the literature. The fiscal multiplier is largest for large positive government spending shocks and smallest for large contractions in government spending. We empirically document this fact using aggregate U.S. data. We find that a neoclassical, life-cycle, incomplete markets model calibrated to match key features of the US economy can explain this empirical finding. The mechanism hinges on the relationship between fiscal shocks, their form of financing, ...
Working Paper
The Nonlinear Effects of Fiscal Policy
We argue that the fiscal multiplier of government purchases is nonlinear in the size of the spending shock. In particular, the multiplier is increasing in the spending shock, with more expansionary government spending shocks generating larger multipliers and more contractionary shocks generating smaller multipliers. We document that empirically this holds true across time, countries and types of shocks. We then propose a neoclassical mechanism that hinges on the relationship between fiscal shocks, their form of financing, and the response of labor supply across the wealth distribution. A ...
Working Paper
The Role of Oil Price Shocks in Causing U.S. Recessions
Although oil price shocks have long been viewed as one of the leading candidates for explaining U.S. recessions, surprisingly little is known about the extent to which oil price shocks explain recessions. We provide a formal analysis of this question with special attention to the possible role of net oil price increases in amplifying the transmission of oil price shocks. We quantify the conditional recessionary effect of oil price shocks in the net oil price increase model for all episodes of net oil price increases since the mid-1970s. Compared to the linear model, the cumulative effect of ...
Working Paper
The Nonlinear Effects of Fiscal Policy
We argue that the fiscal multiplier of government purchases is nonlinear in the size of the spending shock. In particular, the multiplier is increasing in the spending shock, with more expansionary government spending shocks generating larger multipliers and more contractionary shocks generating smaller multipliers. We document that empirically this holds true across time, countries and types of shocks. We then propose a neoclassical mechanism that hinges on the relationship between fiscal shocks, their form of financing, and the response of labor supply across the wealth distribution. A ...
Working Paper
The Nonlinear Effects of Fiscal Policy
We argue that the fiscal multiplier of government purchases in incomplete markets models is nonlinear in the spending shock, in contrast to the multiplier in complete markets models and what is assumed in most of the literature. In particular, the multiplier is increasing in the spending shock, with large positive shocks having the largest multiplier and large negative shocks having the smallest multiplier. The mechanism hinges on the relationship between fiscal shocks, their form of financing, and the response of labor supply across the wealth distribution. The model predicts that the ...
Working Paper
Deep Neural Network Estimation in Panel Data Models
In this paper we study neural networks and their approximating power in panel data models. We provide asymptotic guarantees on deep feed-forward neural network estimation of the conditional mean, building on the work of Farrell et al. (2021), and explore latent patterns in the cross-section. We use the proposed estimators to forecast the progression of new COVID-19 cases across the G7 countries during the pandemic. We find significant forecasting gains over both linear panel and nonlinear time-series models. Containment or lockdown policies, as instigated at the national level by governments, ...
Working Paper
The Nonlinear Effects of Fiscal Policy
We argue that the fiscal multiplier of government purchases is nonlinear in the spending shock, in contrast to what is assumed in most of the literature. In particular, the multiplier of a fiscal consolidation is decreasing in the size of the consolidation. We empirically document this fact using aggregate fiscal consolidation data across 15 OECD countries. We show that a neoclassical life-cycle, incomplete markets model calibrated to match key features of the U.S. economy can explain this empirical finding. The mechanism hinges on the relationship between fiscal shocks, their form of ...