2.0 The Fiscal Policy Multiplier in Good and Bad Times

2.0 The fiscal policy multiplier in good and bad times.
It is crucial to the arguments of those opposing austerity that the fiscal policy multiplier is
reasonably large, or at least can be expected to be large in current economic circumstances. And
indeed there are some recent papers which do argue for a large multiplier: for example, s
estimate a multiplier of nearly 3 for tax changes and Christiano et al. (2011) suggest that a
government-spending multiplier of 3.7 might be plausible in a constant interest rate environment.
However, a crucial question is whether these multipliers are large in times of high (and/or rapidly
rising) public sector debt, and there is evidence that in such times fiscal policy multipliers may
be much lower and could indeed be negative. This is the message of Perotti (1999), who argues
that the effects of fiscal policy in good times (i.e. low debt) may be very different from its
effects in bad times (i.e. high debt). Ilzetzki et al. (2010) present evidence that the fiscal
multiplier is zero in countries with debt-GDP ratios above 60 per cent. It has in fact even been
suggested that fiscal contraction may be expansionary: Giavazzi and Pagano (1990) argue that
the fiscal consolidations undertaken by both Ireland and Denmark in the 1980s were
expansionary. There is also evidence (see Reinhart and Rogoff, 2010) that in countries with debtGDP ratios greater than 90 per cent economic performance deteriorates sharply.
The question that arises, of course, is why low and possibly negative fiscal policy multipliers
may occur with high public sector debt. The main mechanism in the literature (see, e.g.
Sutherland, 1997) is somewhat as follows. Suppose a country is experiencing a rapidly rising
public debt which is unsustainable. Some consolidation is necessary; the only question is when
will it be introduced? The longer the delay in introducing the policy, the more painful it will be.
The sudden introduction of a fiscal consolidation programme removes the uncertainty about
when it will be introduced and means that it is less painful than expected, and for both these
reasons it is expansionary. However, there is a complementary explanation for how a fiscal

consolidation programme can be expansionary: the programme reduces the budget deficit over a
number of years, so at the end of the programme, the stock of public debt is considerably lower
than it otherwise would have been. If the debt takes the form mainly of long-term government
bonds, and assuming that these bonds are imperfect substitutes for other assets, including shorter
term bonds, the lower supply of such bonds means their price will be higher, and hence their
yield will be lower. So future long-term interest rates will be lower than they otherwise would
have been and with foresight current long-term interest rates will be lower as well. So the policy
works by reducing current and expected long-term interest rates; it does this given the time path
of expected short-term rates, meaning it reduces the term premium on government bonds. Lower
long-term interest rates may increase both consumption and investment spending as suggested by
the textbooks. They may well mean higher asset prices, and these may stimulate spending in a
variety of ways. Higher share prices may stimulate consumption spending through a wealth
effect and investment spending by making it easier for firms to raise equity capital. An increase
in asset values may strengthen firms balance sheets, and this may encourage bank lending.
Perhaps most importantly, it may result in a depreciation of the exchange rate (it raises the price
of foreign currency, another asset), and this may stimulate demand by raising exports and
shifting domestic spending from imports to domestic goods. So, there are a number of ways in
which a fiscal consolidation programme may raise spending through reducing longer term
interest rates. For the overall policy to be expansionary, it is necessary that these indirect effects
outweigh the direct effects of the policy. Of course, even if they do not completely offset these
expansionary forces, they may offset them partially and make the contraction less severe than it
otherwise would have been.
A recent IMF study (IMF 2010) has sometimes been cited as evidence that fiscal consolidation is
contractionary; the main finding is that a fiscal consolidation equal to 1 percent of GDP
typically reduces GDP by about 0.5 percent within two years (op. cit., p. 94). But this article
does not contend that fiscal contraction is never contractionary. Indeed, the evidence is
overwhelming that on average fiscal contraction is contractionary. Rather, the contention is that
when there is a problem with the public sector debt, the fiscal policy multiplier may well be
much smaller than on average and could possibly be negative.

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reasons it is expansionary. However, there is a complementary explanation for how a fiscal

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