The Effects of Fiscal Consolidations: Theory and

Evidence*
Alberto Alesina Omar Barbiero Carlo Favero,
Francesco Giavazzi Matteo Paradisi

This version: October 2017

Abstract

We investigate the macroeconomic effects of fiscal consolidations based upon go-

vernment spending cuts, transfers cuts and tax hikes. We extend a narrative dataset of
fiscal consolidations, with details on over 3500 measures for 16 OECD countries. We
show that government spending cuts and cuts in transfers are much less harmful than
tax hikes, despite the fact that non-distortionary transfers are not classified as spen-
ding. Standard New Keynesian models robustly match our results when fiscal shocks
are persistent. Wealth effects on aggregate demand mitigate the impact of a persistent
spending cut. Static distortions caused by persistent tax hikes cause larger shifts in
aggregate supply under sticky prices.

JEL Codes: E62, H60.

Key words: fiscal consolidations, fiscal multipliers, fiscal components, fiscal plans.

* For comments we thank Edoardo Acabbi, Daniel Cohen, Harald Hulig, and participants in the 2016
ASSA Meetings in San Francisco, at the 2015 ECFIN workshop “Expenditure-based consolidations: expe-
riences and outcomes”, at CEPR’s 2015 ESSIM and at seminars at the NY Fed, the IMF, the University of
Stockholm, the University of Chicago, Booth and the Paris School of Economics. We also thank Gualtiero
Azzalini, Igor Cerasa, Giorgio Saponaro, Daniele Imperiale, Armando Miano and Lorenzo Rigon for out-
standing research assistance. We gratefully acknowledge the support of IGIER at Bocconi University and of
the Italian Ministry for Research and Universities through a 2015 PRIN grant prot. 2015FMRE5X.
Alberto Alesina: Harvard University, IGIER-Bocconi. CEPR and NBER. [email protected]
Omar Barbiero: Harvard University. [email protected]
Carlo Favero: Bocconi University, IGIER-Bocconi and CEPR. [email protected]
Francesco Giavazzi: IGIER-Bocconi, CEPR and NBER, [email protected]
Matteo Paradisi: Harvard University. [email protected]

1
1 Introduction
The literature on the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policies has found a wide range of
estimates for fiscal multipliers and is far from having reached a consensus. A new result,
however, is consistently confirmed by a number of recent papers (e.g. Alesina et al., 2015;
Guajardo et al., 2014): fiscal consolidations implemented by raising taxes imply larger
output losses compared to consolidations relying on reductions in government spending.
The earlier literature had examined the effects of spending cuts adding up government con-
sumption and transfers, and this is a serious limitation. In the present study, we disentangle
transfers from tax and government spending measures and show that spending cuts are still
much less recessionary than tax hikes. In fact the average cost of a spending based fis-
cal consolidation in terms of output losses is small. Instead, tax based adjustments cause
deep and long lasting recession.1 Transfers, as predicted by theory, have small effects on
GDP growth, but larger effects on private consumption. We verify that these results can be
explained by a standard New-Keynesian model and we isolate the mechanism that could
explain the observed heterogeneity.
This paper contributes to the literature on the effect of fiscal consolidations in three
ways. First, by producing a new time-series with over 3500 exogenous shifts in fiscal
variables categorized between direct and indirect taxes, transfers, and other government
spending for 16 countries. Second, by simoultaneously estimating for the first time multi-
pliers for three separate components of the budget: taxes, government transfer and public
spending. This is crucial to understand whether previous results on government spending
multipliers were driven by the counfunding effects of transfers and to draw a straightfor-
ward parallel with the theoretical literature. Third, we contribute by analytically studying
the fiscal multipliers in a standard New-Keynsian model and by showing that, within this
framework, the persistence of fiscal measures explains the heterogeneity in the output effect
of different fiscal components.
We identify exogenous shifts in each fiscal variable building on, and further developing,
the narrative approach pioneered by Romer and Romer (2010).2 Our database extends a set
of narrative-identified “exogenous” fiscal stabilizations included in Devries et al. (2011)
and considered “exogenous” because their adoption is not correlated with the economic
1 This result is consistent with earlier evidence presented in Giavazzi and Pagano (1990), Alesina and
Ardagna (2009) and Alesina and Ardagna (2012) obtained with inferior data and techniques.
2 Other attempts at disaggregating fiscal adjustments can be found in Mertens and Ravn (2013), Romer

and Romer (2016) and Perotti (2014). These papers, however, are limited to the U.S. and often only consider
either the tax or the spending side of fiscal corrections.

2
cycle. These consolidations are implemented either through tax increases or spending cuts
in 17 OECD countries over the period 1978-2009. We extended their data by collecting
additional information on every fiscal measure included in the consolidation plans, speci-
fying details on its legislative source for a total of about 3500 different measures over the
entire sample. We also extend the sample identifying the consolidation episodes occurred
between 2009 and 2014, a particularly interesting period in light of the “austerity” plans
adopted in many European countries.3 Our new database contains the magnitude and the
details of each policy prescriptions, e.g. “rise in VAT rate by 2%”, “reduction in tax relief”,
“reduction of childbirth grant”, “cut in public employees salaries”. This approach allows
us to assess with higher precision the magnitude and the exogeneity of every prescription.
The former reduces the measurement error problem often associated with narrative measu-
res. The latter allows us to flag those measures that are potentially “endogenous” and that
may be overlooked if we were just recording their aggregate counterparts.
After having identified the fiscal measures, we organize the data into multi-year “plans”,
that is announcements of shifts in fiscal variables to be implemented over an horizon of se-
veral years, which is the way fiscal policy is implemented in the real world. To the extent
that expectations matter, the multi-year nature of these announcements cannot be igno-
red without incurrring into omitted variable bias. After voting on the size of a multi-year
plan, legislatures decide its composition.4 To account for this infratemporal coomposition,
we split the sample into tax-based (T B), consumption and investment-based (CIB) and
transfer-based (T RB) fiscal plans depending on the largest among the three components
over the horizon of the plan. Because these plans are, by assumption, mutually exclu-
sive we can simulate each of them independently and evaluate the effect of counterfactual
compositions of fiscal consolidations.5 In this way, all components are simoultaneously
included in our model to avoid omitted variable bias. No previous study in the literature
on narrative shocks has separately estimated multipliers of government consumption and
investment, transfers, and taxes in such a way.
We find that plans based on reductions in spending (current and investment) or reduction
in transfers have broadly the same effect on output. They both cause, on average, a mild
recessionary effect after one year from the start of the consolidation, but this effect starts
3 This new database, which is one of the contributions of the paper, is available for researchers who might
wish to use it at the address www.igier.unibocconi.it/fiscalplans.
4 In the case of euro area countries the size of the deficit reduction plan has to be agreed upon with the

European institutions. The composition of the plan is left to local authorities.

5 If we instead estimated the three components in isolation, we would only be able to simulate the

“average” plan observed in the data, featuring the in-sample correlation among components.

3
vanishing the following year.6 This is not an obvious result. It shows that the inclusion of
transfers among other public spending measures is not the explanation for the effect of pu-
blic spending found in previous studies. On the other hand, tax-based adjustments confirm
to cause much larger output losses than expenditure-based fiscal consolidations. Tax-based
plans also have long lasting recessionary effects: four years after the introduction of a tax-
based plan worth one per cent of GDP, output is more than one percentage point lower than
it would have been absent the consolidation. Consumption drops almost equally across
components in the short-term, but recovers quickly for spending and transfer-based conso-
lidations. Private investments strongly respond to taxes only, with a long term multiplier of
-3.
All results are robust to a battery of sensitivity checks. We perform our estimation
on different samples by exluding one country at a time and one decade at a time. We
also check that the estimates are unchanged when excluding the years of the last financial
crisis and the post-Euro period. We repeat our estimation by excluding plans that do not
have a clear-cut composition, i.e. the difference between the two largest components is
smaller than 10% of the total. Heterogeneity in multipliers is also preserved when we
separate indirect from direct taxes. Finally, we verify that the composition of fiscal plans is
not correlated with past economic growth and contemporaneous structural reforms, which
could drive the heterogeneity in the effects of different types of plans. Guajardo et al. (2014)
argue that the difference in the effects of tax hikes and spending cuts is driven by different
responses of monetary policy. We make two points. First, we estimate the response of
short-tem interest rates to different compositions of fiscal plans and show that they are not
significantly different from each other. Second, evidence on the aggregate version of our
dataset in Alesina et al. (2015) shows that monetary policy does not drive the difference in
the effect of tax-based and expenditure-based plans.
In the theoretical part of the paper, we ask which mechanisms could explain our es-
timates. We start from the standard New Keynesian model analyzed by Christiano et al.
(2011) and we include four fiscal variables: labor taxes, consumption taxes, transfers and
other government spending. Given our classification of spending and transfers in the em-
pirical analysis, we can draw a parallel between government spending in the empirics and
in the model. Because transfers are neutral, in the theoretical model we mostly focus on
the heterogeneity between government spending and taxes.We compute analytically instan-
taneous multipliers in a linearized version of the model that excludes capital and assumes
6 This
result is in contrast with recent work by House et al. (2017) that estimate a multiplier of 2 for
government spending cuts during the period 2010-2014 in Europe.

4
that the government budget is always balanced (we relax these assumptions later). Running
comparative statics on the persistence of fiscal variables, we show that the persistence can
rationalize our empirical results.7 When fiscal policies are close to permanent, government
spending cuts are less recessionary than tax hikes. The opposite is true if fiscal shocks
are expected to quickly reverse. The behavior of the spending multiplier is consistent with
Christiano et al. (2011), Woodford (2011) and Galı̀ et al. (2007), but we also evaluate tax
multipliers in relation to their persistence. In light of this, we establish that our empirical
results are not consistent with the predictions of neoclassical models as discussed in Baxter
and King (1993). In addition, the persistence of fiscal shifts could explain the difference
between multipliers found in studies of fiscal stimuli, compared to studies of fiscal con-
solidations. Fiscal stimuli tend to be temporay and generate large spending multipliers.
Fiscal consolidations are more permanent and generate very low spending multipliers. The
opposite is true for taxes.
The fact that our theoretical results square with our empirical findings if the persistence
of fiscal measures is high, should not come as a surprise. In our empirical analysis, fiscal
consolidation shocks are once-and-for-all legislative fiscal changes.8 In the data collection
we seldom encountered cases where previously implemented measures are reversed by the
government. We also estimate a positive inter-temporal correlation of fiscal shocks in our
data, indicating that rather than reversed, aggregate fiscal components typically accumulate
over the course of fiscal plans.
The reason why the persistence of fiscal shocks is critical is the following. A cut in
government spending has a negative demand effect, which causes a recession. But if the
reduction in government spending is permanent, it will imply higher transfers forever, rai-
sing private consumption and partly compensating lower government spending. As a con-
sequence, the drop in aggregate demand diminishes when the persistence of government
cuts increases. Given price rigidities, firms must reduce their labor demand accordingly.
For this reason, when the wealth effect on aggregate demand increases, output falls less. In
the case of a wage tax increase, the output effect is purely explained by shifts in aggregate
supply. Static labor distortions generate a decrease in labor supply which firms under sticky
prices accommodate by cutting labor demand. A persistent increase in labor taxes makes
the static effect on labor supply more permanent, increasing the wage tax multiplier.
7 In principle, monetary policy also plays a small role because it is more accommodating in response to
government spending cuts. However, when we introduce a monetary policy rule more sensitive to government
spending cuts our results are unchanged.
8 See also Coenen et al. (2012) for a discussion of the effectiveness of fiscal policies in relation to their

persistence.

5
 We then extend the model to include capital and allow for fiscal policy to be carried out
through multi-year plans. Adopting the calibration in Christiano et al. (2011) our simula-
tions are consistent with our empirical results for the response of output, private consump-
tion and private investment, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Announcements generate
a curvature in the impulse response functions that matches the shape of our empirical es-
timates. The presence of capital amplifies the response of output to taxes: this is because
the lower return on capital generated by the drop in labor supply tends to further reduce
the capital stock. This effect is mitigated in the case of government spending-based and
transfer-based consolidations as they cause smaller effects on labor supply.
We also verify the robustness of these results by studying scenarios of aggressive mo-
netary policy, a small open economy with external government debt and a model with
hand-to-mouth consumers that relaxes the Ricardian equivalence assumption of the classi-
cal New-Keynesian model. None of these features breaks the importance of persistence in
explaining the heterogeneity in the effects of the different fiscal compoents.
Our paper relates to two branches of literature. On the empirical side, we contribute to
the estimation of the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policies further developing the nar-
rative approach by Romer and Romer (2010). The latter, together with Mertens and Ravn
(2013), focus on the effect of different kinds of tax measures implemented in the US after
World War II. On the spending side, the estimation of empirical multipliers either exploits
increases in defense spending that are presumably exogenous to the business cycle, or the
variation across states in government outlays.9 Romer and Romer (2016) are the first to
study government transfers in isolation, with a narrative measure of Social Security benefit
increases from 1952 to 1991 in the US and looking at the response of private consump-
tion. Within the theoretical literature, we are not the first who identify the persistence of
fiscal shocks to be a crucial element determining the size of fiscal multipliers. However, we
show that it is the main variable robustly explaining the heterogeneous response of output
to our three fiscal components and that it helps reconciling our results with what previous
empirical studies have found.10 .
9 Work involving defense spending in the US includes: Barro and Redlick (2011); Ramey (2011b); Ramey
and Zubairy (ming); Perotti (2014); Nakamura and Steinsson (2014). Chodorow-Reich et al. (2012); Clemens
and Miran (2012); Serrato and Wingender (2011) exploits cross-state variation to estimate the effect of public
spending on employment and output.
10 Christiano and Eichenbaum (1992); Aiyagari et al. (1992), Baxter and King (1993), Burnside et al.

(2004), Ramey and Shapiro (1998) and Ramey (2011a) compare temporary and permanent fiscal shocks in
various versions of an RBC model. They demonstrate that persistent shocks to government spending generate
higher multipliers than temporary changes. The result can be explained by wealth effects on labor supply.
Christiano et al. (2011) derive analytical expressions for spending multipliers in a New-Keynesian model and

6
 The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we describe the data construction pro-
cess and the classification of the various components of taxes and spending. Section 3
illustrates the concept of a “fiscal plan” and explains how the data are organized into plans.
In Section 4 we present our empirical strategy and in Section 5 our results. Robustness is
discussed in Section 6. Finally, Section 7 illustrates the theoretical model, its calibration,
and uses it to investigate the channels underlying our results. The last Section concludes.

2 Data Construction
We identify “exogenous” shifts in fiscal variablesby using the narrative method. The lat-
ter attempts to solve the endogeneity problem by identifying, through direct consultation of
the relevant budget documents, those innovations in fiscal policy that were not implemented
with the objective of cyclical stabilization and can consequently be considered as exoge-
nous for the estimation of the short-term output effects of fiscal consolidations. Devries
et al. (2011) identified “exogenous” fiscal stabilizations implemented through tax increases
and spending cuts in 17 OECD countries over the period 1978-2009.11 In their dataset,
fiscal adjustments are classified as exogenous if (i) they are geared towards reducing an
inherited budget deficit or its long run trend, e.g. increase in pension outlays induced by
population aging, or (ii) are motivated by reasons which are independent of the state of the
business cycle, excluding adjustments motivated by short-run counter-cyclical concerns.
We provide some examples of the motivations behind fiscal consolidations in Appendix
A1.

2.1 A new dataset of disaggregated fiscal shocks

We reviewed and extended the fiscal measures identified by Devries et al. (2011) in two
ways. First, we extended the sample to cover the years from 2009 to 2015 that were not
notice the opposite effect of the persistence of fiscal variables for the size of government spending multipliers,
whose reason we discuss in Section 7.2. Galı̀ et al. (2007) simulates a standard New-Keynesian model
with and without rule-of-thumb consumers and non-competitive labor markets and numerically analyzes the
multipliers on government spending, confirming that the multiplier decreases in the persistence of the fiscal
shock. See also Denes et al. (2013) for multipliers on other fiscal components.
11 The countries are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Holland,

Ireland, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States. In our emprical work we
exclude Holland. The reason is that, checking the Dutch consolidations, we found a significant correlation
with contemporaneous output growth. The reason likely lies in a particular feature of Dutch fiscal plans. In
the Netherlands a law prescribes that the government sets fiscal targets at the beginning of its election term;
in the following years deviations from these targets are only allowed for cyclical reasons.

7
included in the original dataset, following previous work by Alesina et al. (2015). Se-
cond, we collected details on every fiscal measure included in the consolidation plans,
specifying its legislative source for a total of about 3500 different measures over the entire
sample.12 We gathered information on the content of each policy prescription e.g. “rise
in VAT rate by 2%”, “reduction in tax relief”, “reduction of childbirth grant”, “cut in pu-
blic employees salaries”. We then classify each measure using the following categories:
personal income direct taxes, corporate direct taxes, individual property taxes, corporate
property taxes, taxes on goods and services, government consumption, public investments,
public employees salaries, firm subsidies, R&D policies, corporate tax credits and deducti-
ons, individual tax credits and deductions, family and children policies, pension-related
expenditure, unemployment benefits, health-related expenditures and other social security
expenditures. In order to capture the inter-temporal dimension of fiscal policy – and thus to
be able to reconstruct fiscal “plans” – we also distinguish measures that were unanticipated
from announcements of future measures up to a five years horizon.
We have details to assess the magnitude and the exogeneity of every prescription. The
former reduces the measurement error problem often associated with narrative measures.
The latter allows us to flag those measures that are potentially “endogenous” and that may
be overlooked if we were just recording their aggregate counterparts. We can then exclude
such measures in our robustness tests. Our approach also provides more flexibility in the
classification of every fiscal component: this is useful to check whether our results are
sensible to classification assumptions. Finally, we provide higher flexibility that could be
useful to other researchers who aim at using the data for different purposes. Data on single
measures and their motivation, together with details on the procedure we followed to collect
the data, are available online.13
Following a standard procedure, shifts in fiscal variables are measured relative to a
baseline of no policy change. In order to measure the size of the fiscal shifts, we look
exclusively at contemporaneous government documents – as both Devries et al. (2011) and
Romer and Romer (2010) do – for two reasons. First, because retrospective figures repor-
ting the realized change in fiscal variables are rarely available. Second, because realized
changes in fiscal variables, unlike announcements, are likely to be affected by the economic
consequences of a fiscal consolidation, for instance behavioral responses of labor supply
12 We have also corrected a few inconsistencies in that dataset.
13 Find all the information at www.igier.unibocconi.it/fiscalplans.

8
which might affect tax revenues. All fiscal measures are scaled as percentage of GDP in the
year before the change in policy is announced, according to the latest available information
at the time Legislators vote on a budget. This avoids a simultanaeity issue that would arise
if we used contemporaneous GDP. In any case, scaling all the measures using contempora-
neous GDP makes virtually no difference. Data refer to the general government, except for
the US, Canada and Australia, for which they only cover the federal government.
A requirement for the use of narrative fiscal shocks in studying the macroeconomic
effect of fiscal policies is their unpredictability with respect to the economic cycle and past
fiscal shocks. Our empirical methodology takes care of the inter-temporal correlation of
fiscal shocks by analyzing “plans”, rather than isolated measures (see Section 3). Moreover,
we run several tests on our shocks and we do not find them to be predictable by GDP growth
in previous years. Section 6.1 discusses our tests thoroughly. For illustrative purposes,
Figure A.1 in appendix shows the aggregate time series of consolidations for the US and
Europe with a discussion of their motivations.

2.2 The classification of tax, spending and transfers

We consider three broad categories: government consumption and investments, transfers
and taxes. We have also experimented with a four-level disaggregation separating direct
from indirect taxes: the result are reported in Section 6.3. The reason we do not separate
direct and indirect taxes in the baseline specification is that there are only a few episodes of
consolidations involving large changes in indirect taxes. We discuss this in further details
in Section 3.

Government Spending and Investments Government consumption includes current ex-

penditures for goods and services, public sector salaries and other employees compensa-
tion, the corresponding social insurance contributions, the managing cost of State-provided
services such as education (public schools and universities, but also training for unem-
ployed workers) and healthcare. Public investment includes all expenditures made by the
government with the expectation of a positive return. The category includes government
gross fixed capital formation expenditures (e.g. land improvement, plants, purchases of
machinery and equipment, construction of roads and railways.) In other words, we classify
as government consumption and investment everything that is not a direct resource transfer
to citizens or corporations. Ideally, one would want to separate government consumption
from government investment and check if the two multipliers differ. Their organization into

9
plans prevents it since there are too few plans consisting mostly of shifts in government in-
vestment.

Transfers We define transfer every payment made by the government to private entities.
The main economic feature of a transfers is that it does not affect the marginal rate of sub-
stitution between consumption and leisure. We include among transfers subsidies, grants,
and other social benefits. For instance, transfers include all non-repayable payments on
current account to private and public enterprises, social security, social assistance benefits,
and social benefits distributed in cash and in kind.

Direct and Indirect Taxes We define direct every tax imposed on a person or a property
that does not involve a transaction. We include in this component income, profits, capital
gains and property taxes. We classify as direct all taxes levied on the actual or presumptive
net income of individuals, on the profits of corporations and enterprises, on capital gains,
whether realized or not, on land, securities, and other assets plus all taxes on individual and
corporate properties. We also include in the category income tax credits and tax deductions.
Indirect taxes are those imposed on certain transactions involving the purchase of goods
or services. Examples include VAT, sales tax, selective excise duties on goods, stamp duty,
service tax, registration duty, transaction tax, turnover selective taxes on services, taxes on
the use of goods or property, taxes on the extraction and production of minerals and profits
of fiscal monopolies. This category also accounts for VAT exemptions.

3 Fiscal Plans
We study the effects of fiscal “plans”, defined as announcements and implementation of
shifts in fiscal variables over an horizon of several years.
A fiscal plan typically contains three components:

1. unexpected measures (announced upon implementation at time t), etu ;

a
2. measures implemented at time t, but which had been announced j years before, et− j,t ;

3. measures announced at time t, to be implemented in future years, where j denotes

a
the horizon of the announcement, et,t+ j.

10
As an illustrative example, Table 1 summarizes the fiscal consolidation measures intro-
duced in Belgium in 1992-94.14 A first plan worth 2.3 of GDP was announced in 1992:
it included both “unexpected” measures (etu ) that went into effect immediately for a total
of 1.85% of GDP and measures announced in 1992 (et,t+1 a ), but to be implemented the
following year amounting to 0.47% of GDP. The plan was then revised in 1993, when the
Belgian government adopted additional measures worth 0.52 percent of GDP for 1993, that
we label as unexpected, and announced a 0.83 percent consolidation for the following year.
In 1994, there were no additional announcements, the plan only consisted of previously
approved measures and new measures worth 0.38% of GDP.15

Year etu a
et−1,t a
et,t+1 a
et,t+2 a
et,t+3
1992 1.85 0 0.47 0 0
1993 0.52 0.47 0.83 0 0
1994 0.38 0.83 0 0 0

Table 1: The multi-year plan introduced in Belgium (and then revised) in 1992 (% of GDP)

Inter-temporal Dimension The inter-temporal feature of fiscal policy generates “fiscal

foresight” because agents learn in advance future announced measures. As noted by Leeper
et al. (2013), fiscal foresight prevents the identification of exogenous shifts in fiscal varia-
bles from VAR residuals. This is the reason for using a direct measurement of the shifts in
fiscal variables, which is what the the narrative approach does. Equation (1) describes the
correlation between the immediately implemented and the announced parts of a plan:

a u
et,t+ j = ϕ j et + vt (1)

Overlooking announcements would mean assuming that they are uncorrelated with
unanticipated policy shifts, incurring into the risk of omitted variable bias. As we shall
see, this assumption of no correlation is violated in the data. The inter-temporal dimension
14 See Appendix A1 for details on the motivation of this plan.
15 Our maintained assumption is that plans are fully credible. The plans in our sample are in some cases
amended on the fly: when this happens we treat the amendment as a surprise and we count it as a new plan.
The assumption that plans are fully credible is strong and cannot be easily tested. Lack of credibility would
arise if measures implemented differed from those that had been announced. This would require cleaning
these measures, which are often reported as fractions of GDP, from the effects of unexpected shifts in output
or inflation. Credibility is discussed in a theory context in Lemoine and Linde (2016). Our classification of
plans could in some cases provide useful evidence on their credibility. For instance, we expect T RB plans,
which, as reported in Table 4, often imply changes in social security legislation, to be less easily reversed,
and thus more credible compared to CIB plans.

11
of the plan should also be preserved when simulating the impulse response functions that
compute fiscal multipliers (see Section 4).

Infra-temporal Dimension A fiscal consolidation includes shifts in taxes (T ), in govern-

ment consumption and investment (CI) and in transfers (T R). These measures are infra-
temporally correlated and their correlation poses a challenge to the simulation of the effects
of a plan. Suppose we estimated a model projecting output growth on shifts in T , CI and
T R. The coefficients on the three fiscal variables would be determined by their in-sample
correlation. As a consequence, we could only simulate the ”average” fiscal plan preserving
the correlations that we observe in the data. This, however, would not allow to pin down
the effects of a counterfactual plan involving a different composition of fiscal shocks. The
standard solution to this problem would be to decompose T , CI and T R into orthogonal
shocks that can be simulated independently. This is a hard identification problem.
Alternatively, we could estimate a fully non-parametric model allowing for differential
effects of all the potential compositions of fiscal plans. Because of limitations in sample
size we reduce the dimensionality of the model by splitting the sample into tax-based (T B),
consumption-based (CIB) and transfer-based (T RB) plans depending on the largest among
the three components (measured as a percent of GDP) over the horizon of the plan. Because
these plans are, by assumption, mutually exclusive it is possible to simulate each of them
independently.

12
 Table 2: Plans Classification, 1981-2014

Country TB CB TRB

AUS 3 1 3
AUT 2 0 6
BEL 6 0 9
CAN 8 7 4
DEU 6 0 8
DNK 3 1 4
ESP 8 7 0
FIN 2 1 6
FRA 4 4 2
GBR 5 2 4
IRL 7 6 1
ITA 5 6 7
JPN 4 5 1
PRT 6 5 0
SWE 0 0 5
USA 5 1 1

Tot. 74 46 61 181

Note. Plans are classified according to the category that is most affected.
The Table reports new plans only, excluding years when no new measures
where introduced.

Table 2 shows the number of plans in each category. There are 46 plans based on
reductions in spending (current plus investment) and 61 on transfers. T B plans are more
frequent and amount to 74 plans out of a total of 181.16 We do not distinguish direct and
indirect tax-based plans in our baseline specification as we would only have 21 episodes
of indirect tax-based consolidations. Nevertheless, we show the results of this alternative
specification in Section 6.3. Table 3 documents the composition of the average plan in each
category: for instance, the total size of the average CIB plan amounts to 0.83 per cent of
GDP, of which about 58% is associated with reductions in government consumption and
investments. Table 3 shows that the main component of the plan accounts for a significantly
larger share over the total plan than any other component. Moreover, comparing standard
errors to averages, the main component always results as the one with the smaller relative
standard error. This suggests that residual components tend to be more noisy as they are
not the main focus of the plan. Shares do not sum to one because we cannot always classify
16 Following our definition, we count as plan every year when a new measure is introduced. Not every year
in which a fiscal shock occurs is labeled as a plan: this is the case in all years when no new measures are
announced and the government implements measures voted upon in previously years.

13
a minor share of fiscal measures under the three categories.

Table 3: Average composition of plans (1981-2014)

Average composition (% of GDP)

Total Plan Tax Consumption Transfer
Type of plan N
% GDP % GDP % Plan % GDP % Plan % GDP % Plan

Tax Based 74 1.56 1.01 0.65 0.25 0.16 0.17 0.11

(1.52) (0.81) (0.45) (0.36)

Consumption Based 46 1.45 0.23 0.16 0.83 0.58 0.22 0.15

(1.62) (0.66) (0.72) (0.33)

Transfer Based 61 1.69 0.41 0.24 0.33 0.20 0.71 0.42

(1.41) (0.64) (0.35) (0.63)

Note. Mean values computed in each category. Columns denoted by GDP report the measure as a ratio with
respect to the GDP in the previous year. Column denoted by Plan show the average with respect to the total
plan size. Average shocks of fiscal components do not sum to the total plan because of residual measures not
classified under any of the three categories.
Standard Deviation in parenthesis.

Our strategy for classifying multi-year fiscal plans does not lead to marginal cases in
which a label is attributed on the basis of a negligible difference between the two largest
components. It appears from the data that in most cases a political decision was made first
as to the nature of the fiscal consolidation. In only 30 out of 181 new plans the difference
in share between the two biggest components is lower than 10 percent of the total fiscal
correction. In only 16 cases the main component is less than 5 percent bigger than the
second largest component. Our results are robust when we exclude plans where these
differences are small and our results are virtually unchanged. Our results are also robust to
dropping all plans in which the share of the dominant component is less than 50 per cent of
the total adjustment. As discussed in the robustness section using this criterion lead us do
drop 22 tax-based plans, 14 consumption-based plans, and 23 transfer-based plans.

14
 Table 4: Average composition of plans by category of spending and taxes (1981-2014)

Average Size (% of GDP)

Size, unanticipated measures Size, announced measures
Mean Sd Mean Sd

Consumption
Government Consumption 0.132 (0.231) 0.058 (0.173)
Salaries 0.064 (0.177) 0.020 (0.090)
Public investment 0.06 (0.178) 0.006 (0.035)

Taxes
Total Direct 0.379 (0.753) 0.077 (0.548)
Income 0.185 (0.365) 0.048 (0.273)
Personal 0.08 (0.266) 0.032 (0.211)
Corporate 0.064 (0.147) -0.004 (0.115)
Property taxes 0.03 (0.139) -0.007 (0.106)
Other Direct 0.019 (0.096) 0.008 (0.072)
Total Indirect 0.229 (0.380) 0.084 (0.187)

Transfers
Pensions 0.135 (0.261) 0.046 (0.090)
Firm Subsidies 0.064 (0.119) 0.015 (0.046)
Tax Credits and Deductions 0.008 (0.067) 0.021 (0.083)
Unemployment benefits 0.05 (0.129) 0.039 (0.078)
Other Subsidies 0.161 (0.324) 0.102 (0.281)

Note. Mean values computed for each category for the period 1981-2014. Data on Germany
restricted to the period 1992-2014.

Table 4 shows a detailed breakdown of the three main components across all type of
plans. For each component we document the fraction of the adjustment that was unex-
pected and the fraction that was announced for future implementation. Governments seem
to implement consistent policies over time since the relative ranking of the magnitudes for
every sub-component is unchanged when comparing unexpected to announced measures.
Government consumption is the largest sub-component in CIB plans. Salaries and invest-
ment are equally employed as unexpected measures, but cuts in salaries come with higher
future announcements. Pensions are the largest component to be cut among government
transfers averaging 0.135% of GDP among unexpected measures. Firm subsidies are the
second largest sub-component with about half the impact on average. Indirect taxes are
the largest in magnitude among all fiscal measures with an average of 0.23% of GDP in

15
unexpected measures per year. Corporate taxes are the largest sub-component of income
taxes, although we could not precisely measure the breakdown between corporate and per-
sonal taxes. Property taxes seem to be the only component that on average is reversed over
time.17
Finally, Table 5 shows the length of the three types of plans. The 75% of plans have
more than a one-year horizon, implying that the vast majority of fiscal consolidations in-
clude announcements of future measures. T RB plans, on average, last longer, probably
reflecting the time it takes to change social security rules. The three types of plans seem to
be fairly similar across all the other dimensions. Note that when a plan is changed while
being implemented we call it a new plan.

Table 5: Time Horizon of Fiscal Plans

Horizon of Plans in Years

Type of Plan 1 2 3 4 5 6 Average
CIB 16 17 3 4 1 5 2.39
TB 19 25 9 12 5 4 2.61
TRB 12 23 4 6 9 7 2.97
All Plans 47 65 16 22 15 16

4 Estimation
We study the effects of three types of plans (CIB, TB and TRB) estimating a panel with
country and time fixed effects for 16 OECD countries over the sample of annual data 1978-
2014. Plans are heterogeneous both in their effects on per capita output growth and in their
inter-temporal correlation structure i.e. the ϕ 0 s in (1). We estimate the following system

    
Unexpected Announced CB i,t
2
  z }| { z }| { 
∆yi,t = α +  ∑  βj eui,t− j + γj eai,t− j,t +δ eai,t,t+ j+1   T RBi,t  + λi + χt + ui,t (2)

j=0 | {z } | {z }
Past Future T Bi,t
17 Only a few countries in our sample use property taxes as part of a fiscal consolidation.
Italy is the country,
in our sample, that used property taxes more intensively. It is also the country responsible for the negative
average effect of announcements: this is explained by the fact that in more than one occasion Italy announced
that newly introduced property taxes would be reversed in subsequent years. We return to this point below.

16
 where the index i refers to the countries in the panel and the index t refers to the year a
plan is first introduced. eui,t− j , eai,t− j,t and eai,t,t+ j are, respectively, the unexpected, past and
h i
future components of the total magnitude of the plan. βj = β j CB T
βj RB βjT B is a 3-
element coefficient vector corresponding to the unanticipated component of the three plans.
Likewise, γj corresponds to the measures implemented in period t that had been previously
announced (allowing for lagged effects) and δ to the announced measures eai,t,t+ j for the
future period t + j. Each of the three elements of βj , γj and δ corresponds to one of the three
types of plans studied. CBi,t , T RBi,t and T Bi,t are dummies that take the value 1 depending
on the component with largest size over the total plan (see section 3 for details). λi and χt
are country and time fixed effects.
The estimation of (2) and (1) allows for the two sources of heterogeneity investigated
in this paper: the intra-temporal and the inter-temporal dimension. The inter-temporal di-
mension is key to understanding one of the main innovation of this paper. Early narrative
studies collapse unanticipated and announced measures using (eui,t + eai,t,t+ j ) and neglect
eai,t− j,t .18 Equation (2) allows instead for unanticipated measures, announcements and im-
plementation of previously announced measures to have different multipliers.
We estimate the inter-temporal correlation between the unexpected and the announced
part of a plan by using the auxiliary regression in (1) for each plan-specific correlation.
We limit the horizon to two-year-ahead announcements as this is the plan horizon used in
estimation. The model in (2) is then estimated by Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR)
to take into account the simultaneous cross-country correlations of residuals.
There are two aspects to note in (2). First, we have restricted the coefficients δ to be
equal for all announced measures eai,t,t+k (k = 1, 2). We have done so to increase power
and because the dynamic effect is already captured by the coefficients on eai,t−1,t . Second,
(2) is a truncated moving average. Thus, the efficient estimation of the relevant parameters
requires that the left-hand side variables are time-series with a low degree of persistence,
as it is the case for output growth.19
18 Ramey (2011b) also recognizes the importance of anticipated future shocks by including in the empirical

specification professional forecasts based on the Survey of Professional Forecasters.

19 This specification is, in our view, the appropriate way to estimate the parameters of an impulse response

function when the aim is to capture the average effect of a fiscal plan. In this context the Linear Projection
method proposed by Jordà (2005) and extensively used in the literature to analyze the effects of isolated fiscal
shocks would not allow to properly track the effects of plans, as discussed in Alesina et al. (2016).

17
5 Results
We use estimates of (2) to simulate the effects of fiscal adjustment plans with different
composition on various macroeconomic variables: output growth, consumption growth,
the growth of fixed capital formation, indices of consumers and business confidence and
the short-term interest rate.20 The panel includes the 16 OECD countries listed above. The
data are at a yearly frequency and the sample extends from 1978 to 2014.
Figure 1 reports estimates of ϕ1 and ϕ2 from (1) for the three type of plans we ana-
lyze. Consolidations plans based on increases in taxes feature the highest inter-temporal
correlation, indicating that T B plans typically take the form of sequences of tax changes
distributed over time. In other words, they are not front-loaded. CIB plans, instead, have
the smallest (but statistically significant) inter-temporal correlation, indicating that govern-
ments tend to front-load cuts in current spending and investments.

Figure 1: Inter-temporal Persistence by Type of Plan

Table 6 reports the estimated coefficients β0 , γ0 , and δ on the three components of each
type of plan at time t in model (2). Note that most coefficients are significant. Howe-
ver, to properly evaluate the average effects of the three fiscal plans we must combine the
coefficients in Table 6 with the inter-temporal coefficients in Figure 1, in impulse response
form.
20 Our non-fiscal macro data come from: Thomson Reuters, Datastream and the OECD Economic Outlook

database. Datastream was used to download time series for the Economic Sentiment Indicators originally
produced by the European Commission. The series for private final consumption expenditures and gross
fixed capital formation along with the other macroeconomic variables are from the OECD Economic Outlook
database.

18
 Table 6: Summary of estimated coefficients of regression (2)

Type of plan β0 γ0 δ

Tax-based -0.54 -0.66 -0.15

(0.10) (-0.16) (0.11)

Consumption-based -0.21 -0.16 -0.36

(0.13) (0.31) (0.17)

Transfer-based -0.08 -0.28 -0.30

(0.10) (0.18) (0.14)

Figure 2 reports the impulse responses of output growth, consumption and investment
to the introduction of multi-year plans whose total size is normalized to be one percent of
GDP. Note that the heterogeneity in the ϕ 0 s implies that an initial unanticipated correction
of one per cent of GDP will generate plans of different size depending on the inter-temporal
structure of the plan. To make our results comparable across plans, we normalize the sum
of current and future shifts in fiscal variables to be one percent of GDP. We report two
standard errors bands. T RB plans are marked in green; plans based on reductions in current
and investment spending in blue; plans based on tax hikes in red. Responses are cumulated
over time, so that the points along the impulse response functions measure the deviation of
an outcome from its level absent the change in fiscal policy.

19
 Figure 2: Impulse Response Functions

GDP Consumption

Investment

Note. Impulse response functions computed on the sample 1979-2014.

Starting from the effects on output growth, T B plans are significantly more recessionary
than CIB and T RB plans throughout, particularly since two years after the policy shift.
This shows that the inclusion of transfers among other public spending measures is not the
cause of the mild effect of expenditure cuts found in previous studies. CIB and T RB plans
exhaust their mild and non-statistically significant recessionary effect two years after a plan
is introduced. CIB plans are significantly recessionary after one year before converging to
a zero impact. T B plans, on the contrary, have a long lasting effect on output growth,
estimated to be around 1.3 percentage points. This multiplier is smaller than the value
reported in Romer and Romer (2010) for a response to a tax shock, but close to that reported
in Blanchard and Perotti (2002), although the type of policy shift that we analyze is different
.
Studying the effects on the disaggregated components of output, we find that most of
the difference in medium-term output growth between T B and the other two types of plans
is accounted for by investment.21 After the introduction of a T B plan, investment falls up
21 This is consistent with results in Alesina et al. (2015) and Alesina et al. (2002).

20
to 2 percentage points compared to a 1 percentage point in the case of CIB and T RB, where
the drop recovers in two years. Private consumption falls by one percent following the
introduction of a TB plan and by less than one percent in the case of CIB and T R plans.
Consistently with Romer and Romer (2016), consumption responds in the short-term to
changes in transfers and recovers in two years, while it remains slightly negative in the
case of CIB plans.

Figure 3: Impulse Response Functions for Additional Outcomes

ESI Consumer Confidence ESI Investment Confidence

Note. Impulse response functions computed on the sample 1979-2014.

Figure 3 shows the response of consumer confidence and business confidence. The
latter is consistent with results on investment for all three plans. Consumers confidence
– unlike consumption growth – responds positively to a cut in government spending and
negatively to a cut in transfers. Several reasons could explain why consumer confidence
does not reflect changes in actual consumption expenditure. Although a cut in government
consumption may boost confidence on the overall stability of the economy, this may trigger
an incentive to save if the inter-temporal elasticity of substitution is low. Alternatively, if
government consumption is complementary to private consumption, consumers may feel
more confident but still decide to cut purchases. Cuts in transfers may motivate consumers
to work more in response to a wealth-effect on labor supply and sustain consumption. More
simply, consumers could be liquidity constrained and thus unable to translate improved
confidence into higher consumption.

21
6 Discussion and Robustness

6.1 Exogeneity of plans

Hernandez de Cos and Moral-Benito (2013) and Jordà and Taylor (2016) point out that fis-
cal adjustments constructed with the narrative approach are predictable, either by their own
past or by past economic variables. The solution for predictability by shifts in past fiscal
variables is to consider plans rather than collapsing them into shocks. Predictability from
past economic variables, and in particular from output growth, deserves more attention.
Hernandez de Cos and Moral-Benito (2013) describe fiscal adjustments through a dummy
variable that takes the value of one when an adjustment is implemented and zero otherwise,
and find that such a dummy is predictable based on information available at time t − 1. This
procedure overlooks the fact that there are two sources of identification of narrative adjust-
ments: the timing of a fiscal correction and its size. Transforming fiscal adjustments into a
dummy completely neglects size.22 These concerns regarding predictability can be addres-
sed studying the effects of the introduction of a fiscal plan within a panel VAR that controls
for the cycle and for lagged government revenues and expenditures, as done in Alesina
et al. (2016).23 In this case the impulse responses do not significantly differ from those
obtained implementing a limited information approach, that is a truncated MA regression
such as the one in (2).

6.2 Country Styles

In our baseline results we have assumed that the inter-temporal style of a fiscal plan (the
estimated ϕ’s) varies depending on its composition. Here we allow it to vary across coun-
tries. The assumption is that each country has its own style in the design of fiscal plans,
which is the same for all three types of plans: T B, T RB and CIB. Table A.1 in appendix
reports the estimated country-specific ϕ’s.
When we simulate the impact on output growth of a fiscal consolidation worth one
percent of GDP, using country-specific ϕ 0 s the results are very similar to those obtained
22 Thisresult is reiterated by the fact that we have verified that GDP does not Granger-cause the narrative
fiscal consolidations shocks, according to the procedure by Toda and Taku (1995) which shows no Granger
causality on a panel VAR with one lag, and 10% Granger causality on a panel with two lags. When the
procedure is repeated country-by-country, only Italy’s GDP is found to Granger cause fiscal consolidations.
When we exclude Italy from the sample, all results are virtually unchanged.
23 Predictability of fiscal shocks does not invalidate the consistency of the estimates (as it does not rule out

weak exogeneity), though it could be a problem when models are simulated to retrieve impulse responses.

22
using plan-specific ϕ’s.

6.3 Four-level disaggregation: separating direct from indirect taxes

There are only 21 episodes whose dominant component is an increase in consumption
taxes, and most of these episodes are concentrated in a few countries.24 Although the
observations are too few to produce reliable results, we introduce indirect-tax based conso-
lidations in Figure 4 to illustrate the robustness of our baseline results.
The multipliers associated with plans mostly based on increases in indirect taxes vary
depending on the country considered. Figure 4 shows the results for two of the countries in
our sample that did engage in some indirect-based consolidations: France and Germany.25
CIB and T RB plans have almost exactly the same effect as in the case with three compo-
nents. The effect of consolidations plans mostly based on direct taxes have the same effect
as those found aggregating the two types of taxes. The effects of plans mostly based on
increases in indirect taxes, instead, appear to depend on the country-specific inter-temporal
style of the plan: they are more or less recessionary according to how far in advance fiscal
measures are announced.

Figure 4: Country-specific impulse response for the four-component version of the model

Note. Impulse response functions computed on the sample 1979-2014. Direct Tax-Based plan in
red, Indirect Tax-Based plan in yellow, Transfer-Based plan in green, Public Consumption-Based
plan in blue.
24 Austria,Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany and Ireland.
25 Note that the two panels in Figure 4 rely exactly on the same estimates in (2) and are different only
because the ϕ’s are different in the two countries.

23
6.4 Different Samples and Alternative Criteria for Selection of Plans
As a second robustness exercise we have repeated the estimation using the sample 1981-
1997 (pre-Euro sample), and the sample 1981-2007 (pre-financial crisis).26 We have also
repeated the estimation excluding one country at a time. We have done so because fiscal
consolidations were concentrated in specific historical periods (see Figure A.1 in appen-
dix) and because consolidations differed in the extent and way they were implemented in
different periods. None of the above replications generated results that were significantly
different from the baseline.27 We have also repeated the estimation excluding all plans in
which the difference in share between the two largest components of the fiscal adjustment
was lower than 10 percent of the total consolidation. This eliminates plans for which a
classification is borderline. Results are virtually unchanged as showed in Figure A.4 in
Appendix C. Finally, we concentrated only on plans whose dominant componet was at le-
ast 50 per cent of the total adjustment (this criterion led us to drop 22 tax-based plans,
14 consumption-based plans and 23 transfer-based plans). The results, shown in Figure
A.5 in Appendix C, support the evidence of the baseline model that tax-based adjustments
are significantly more costly in terms of growth while the effect of consumption-based ad-
justments and transfer based adjustments is much less recessionary and not significantly
different from each other.

6.5 Contemporaneous economic reforms

Economic reforms implemented along with a fiscal correction could affect the size of fis-
cal multipliers.28 For instance, it may be the case that CIB plans are usually introduced
along with product or labor market liberalizations that have a positive effect on output gro-
wth, partially compensating the negative impact of the consolidation. Using as a proxy the
change in the OECD indexes of product and labor market reforms, we run a probit specifi-
cation to check whether contemporaneous reforms affect: i) the probability of introducing
a fiscal consolidation plan, and ii) the type of plan, given that a new plan is introduced. The
results of this exercise are reported in Table A.2, in Appendix C. There is no correlation
between the timing or the composition of fiscal consolidations and the implementation of
structural reforms. This does not exclude that reforms might interact with a fiscal plan and
that accompanying policies might dampen the effect of a fiscal correction. But the finding
26 See Figure A.3 in Appendix C.
27 Results are available upon request.
28 See also Alesina et al. (2017) for a discussion of contemporaneous economic reforms.

24
is reassuring on the possibility that the heterogeneity of different types of plans might be
the product of systematic differences in contemporaneous reforms.

6.6 Monetary Policy

Different responses of monetary policy to consolidation plans with alternative compositions
could confound our results. For instance, our heteregeneity could be driven by the central
bank cutting interest rates more in response to a CIB or T RB plan, compared to a T B plan.
To address this, we first evaluate the response of short term interest rates to the various types
of plans and we report it in Appendix C. The response to CIB and T B plans is positive and
the two are overlapping and not statistically different from each other. T RB plans generate a
non-significant 20 basis points drop in the short-term interest rate and we cannot reject that
the response is significantly different from CIB and T B plans. This implies that monetary
policy does not explain – at least not entirely – the observed heterogeneity in output effect,
contrary to what argued by Guajardo et al. (2014). Further evidence on the aggregate
version of this dataset in Alesina et al. (2015) shows that monetary policy does not drive
the difference in the effect of tax-based and expenditure-based plans by estimating a VAR
model including interest rate shocks.

7 Model
Which theoretical channels could be responsible for the observed heterogeneity between
alternative fiscal stabilization designs? We address this question using a New Keynesian
closed-economy DSGE model extended to incorporate the fiscal variables we have analy-
zed in Section 5.29 Except for tax distortions and for the presence of four fiscal instru-
ments, the model is identical to Christiano et al. (2011), CER in what follows. Because
of our classification of spending and transfers in the empirical analysis, we can draw a
parallel between government spending in the empirics and in the model. This would not
be possible if transfers were part of government spending in the data. For these reasons,
and because transfers are neutral, in what follows we mostly focus on the heterogeneity
between government spending and taxes. At the end of this Section we extend our fra-
mework to include external debt in an open economy. Finally, in Section 7.3, in order to
29 This
is not the only model that can yield heterogeneous responses to alternative fiscal plans. Another
example would be a two-sectors model with different production technologies in the private and public sector,
as studied, for instance, in Pappa et al. (2015).

25
match the assumptions underlying our empirical evidence, we extend the model to allow
for fiscal policy to be carried out through multi-year plans, for capital accumulation, and
for non-Ricardian agents.

7.1 Model Setup

The representative agent maximizes her lifetime time-separable utility
∞
max E0 ∑ β t U (Ct , Nt , Gt )
Ct ,Nt ,Gt t=0

subject to the budget constraint (1 + τtc ) Pt Ct + Bt+1 = 1 − τtd Wt Nt + T Rt + (1 + it ) Bt .

Ct denotes time t consumption, Nt the amount of hours worked, Pt is the price level, Wt the
nominal wage rate, Bt is a one-period nominal risk-free bond, and β is the discount factor.
The government can use four fiscal instruments: τtd , a direct tax rate on wages, τtc , a sales
tax, Gt , nominal government consumption and T Rt , government transfers. As in CER,
the budget is balanced period-by-period through endogenous changes in non-distortionary
transfers.
The production side of the economy is standard. The final good is produced by com-
petitive firms using a constant elasticity of substitution aggregator of intermediate goods
hR i ε
1 ε−1 ε−1
Yt = 0 Yt (i) ε di . Intermediate goods Yt (i) are produced by monopolists – em-
ploying labor and no capital – according to Yt (i) = Nt (i). We introduce capital later. The
monopolist sets prices as in Calvo (1983): the probability that in period t she can reset her
price Pt (i) is (1 − θ ).
We assume that fiscal variables follow exogenous processes:

g ρ
Gt+1 = Gt exp(εt+1 )
 ρ
d
1 + τt+1 = 1 + τtd exp(εt+1
d
)
c
1 + τt+1 = (1 + τtc )ρ exp(εt+1
c
)

where the ε 0 s are iid shocks and ρ denotes their persistence, assumed to be the same
for all three fiscal shocks. The resource constraint of the economy is

Yt = Ct + Gt

Monetary policy is determined by a standard Taylor rule, where φπ measures how ag-

26
gressively the nominal interest rate responds to inflation:

it = β −1 (1 + πt )φπ − 1

7.2 Instantaneous Multipliers

Consider, as in CER, the case of non separability between consumption and leisure and
separability with respect to government spending:
γ
[Ct (1 − Nt )1−γ ]1−σ
u(Ct , Nt , Gt ) = + ν(Gt ) (3)
1−σ
We computed analytically the instantaneous multipliers of the three fiscal components
for a first order approximation of the model. Analytical expressions are shown in Appendix
B1. Since our data mostly refers to permanent policy changes we are interested in how
multipliers are affected by the persistence parameter ρ. Figure 5 shows the magnitude of
the instantaneous multipliers as a function of ρ when we adopt the same calibration as
in CER. In order to make the multipliers comparable across components, we compute the
responses of output to a shift of each fiscal component equivalent to 1% of GDP. Therefore,
in the case of taxes we plot the multiplier corresponding to a 1% increase in revenues over
GDP, assuming the tax base is at the steady-state level.

Figure 5: Instantaneous Multiplier as a Function of Fiscal Shock Persistence

0
g
td
-0.2 tc

-0.4
Output Multiplier

-0.6

-0.8

-1

-1.2

-1.4
0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1
Persistence

27
Size of multipliers and persistence The instantaneous multiplier of wage taxes - mea-
sured in output deviation from the steady state - is smaller (in absolute value) compared to
that associated with consumption taxes or government spending when persistence is low.
The lines cross and direct taxes display larger negative effects on output when the fiscal
shifts are persistent. This is because the multipliers for spending and consumption taxes are
slightly decreasing (in absolute value) in persistence, while the multiplier for direct taxes
rapidly increases (in absolute value) with persistence, going from around 0.2 for ρ = 0.7 to
1.3 when ρ = 0.99. This result is consistent with our empirical findings, because all fiscal
plans estimated in Section 5 are permanent (i.e. with a high ρ) shifts in fiscal policy.
Figure 5 also helps reconciling our model with previous theoretical results which found
a tax multiplier smaller than the spending multiplier in models where fiscal components
have low persistence e.g. Denes et al. (2013). In general, the persistence of fiscal shifts is
a crucial aspect to explain the difference between the multipliers of each fiscal component
in a fiscal stimulus, compared to a fiscal consolidation. Fiscal shocks tend to be temporay
and generate large spending multipliers. Fiscal consolidations are more permanent and
generate low spending multipliers. The opposite is true for taxes. The behavior of the
spending multiplier in Figure 5 is consistent with the one discussed in Christiano et al.
(2011), Woodford (2011) and Galı̀ et al. (2007) in different versions of the New Keynesian
model.30

Aggregate demand and supply To better grasp the intuition on the main channels re-
sponsible for the result in Figure 5 consider, following Denes et al. (2013), the aggregate
demand (AD) and aggregate supply (AS) curves derived from a log-linearized version of
30 We also show that the multipliers of government spending and wage taxes can be higher than 1 (in
absolute value), when we assume that government spending shocks have low persistence and monetary policy
does not respond to the output gap. If we introduced a trade-off between output and inflation in the Taylor
rule, we would obtain a spending multiplier below 1, but the relative magnitude of the three multipliers
would remain the same. We report in Appendix C Figure A.6 how the multipliers would change under
an alternative Taylor rule that responds to output with φy = 0.125 as in Smets and Wouters (2007). New
Keynesian models typically deliver low spending multipliers (see Smets and Wouters, 2007) unless additional
frictions such as rule-of-thumb consumers, demand-determined employment or zero lower-bound are added.
For instance, Woodford (2011) studies a zero-lower bound economy, Galı̀ et al. (2007) have a positive share of
rule-of-thumb consumers together with a non-competitive labor market and Nakamura and Steinsson (2014)
introduce fixed nominal interest rates. See Ramey (2011a) for a general discussion about the size of spending
multipliers in New-Keynesian models.

28
the model:

1−ρ
AD : π̂t = − [Dy ŷt + Dg ĝt + Dτ s τˆt c ] (4)
φπ − ρ
κ h c d
i
AS : π̂t = Sy ŷt − Sg ĝt + Sτ τ̂t + Sτ τt
s w ˆ (5)
1−βρ

Where ŷt = log (Yt /Y ss ), ĝt = (Gt /Yt − Gss /Y ss ), τ̂td = τtd − τ d,SS and τ̂tc = τtc − τ c,SS .

The AD and AS curves describe how output and inflation respond to changes in the econo-
mic environment, including fiscal shocks. The coefficients Dy , Dg , Dτ s , Sy , Sg , Sτ s , Sτ w are
functions of the parameters of the model and their analytical expressions are reported in
Appendix B2. Under the model’s calibration these coefficients are all positive and do not
depend on the persistence parameter ρ. This parameter amplifies the output elasticities Dy
and Sy and the intercepts corresponding to the shifts in fiscal variables.

π̂t π̂t
AS0 AS
AS0
AS

B
A
AD
A0 B0
AD0

AD
ŷt ŷt
−1.2 0 AD0 −0.8 0

(a) Low persistence (b) High persistence

Figure 6: The output effect of a cut in government spending

Figure 6 compares the same cut in ĝt in an economy with low shock persistence (panel
a) and in one where persistence is higher (panel b). In both cases output and prices decrease,
but the effects are smaller when the shock is more persistent. A cut in ĝt has two effects
on aggregate demand and supply. First, the demand curve shifts inward, due to the direct
effect of lower demand from the government. Second, the supply curve also shifts inward.
Workers lower their labor supply as they expect higher transfers in the future, this leads to
an increase of firms marginal costs. With a persistence of ρ = 0.6, the new equilibrium
implies a shift from point A to point A0 , with a multiplier of 1.2. When persistence is
higher (ρ = 0.98) the shifts in the demand and supply curves change. On the one hand,

29
the demand and supply elasticities are higher because the persistent nature of fiscal shocks
makes consumers more sensitive to change in prices and firms more aggressive in their price
settings. On the other hand, the present value of transfers increases with the persistence of
the spending cuts. The result is that aggregate demand reacts less after accounting for
the direct reduction in public spending and the response of private consumption, but labor
supply falls more because of the wealth effect.
When facing lower aggregate demand, firms constrained by price rigidities must adjust
their labor demand downwards. The latter effect is stronger when persistence is low and
dominates over labor supply forces. In a Neoclassical economy, prices would instantly
adjust under the two alternative values of ρ and the wealth effect on labor supply would
dominate. This is why RBC models deliver an opposite prediction for the relation between
the spending multiplier and ρ (see Aiyagari et al., 1992; Baxter and King, 1993). The
result presented above is independent of the specification of preferences: it holds under
preferences in (3) and under separability between consumption and leisure.

π̂t π̂t AS0

AS0 AS

AS
C0
C D0 D AD

AD

ŷt ŷt
−0.7 0 −1.4 0

(a) Low persistence (b) High persistence

Figure 7: The output effect of a wage tax increase

Figure 7 shows the effect of an increase in τ̂td under low (panel a) and high (panel b)
persistence. In both cases output decreases and prices increase. Contrary to what happened
in the case of a reduction in government consumption, the multiplier increases with persis-
tence. An increase in τ̂td only has a direct effect on aggregate supply, as can be seen in (4)
and (5). This happens because τ̂td creates a wedge in the labor market but does not distort
demand directly. As in the case of reductions in government consumption, higher persis-
tence makes the elasticities of supply and demand higher. Static labor distortions generate
a decrease in labor supply which firms under sticky prices accommodate by cutting labor

30
demand. A persistent increase in labor taxes makes the static effect on labor supply more
permanent, increasing the wage tax multiplier.
For consumption taxes the intuition is straightforward. Such taxes distort the Euler
equation. An increase in τ c that only lasts for a short period induces agents to postpone
consumption. As a consequence, output decreases the lower is ρ . On the contrary, in the
case of high persistence, when τ c is expected to remain high for a long time the consump-
tion path is flatter and the impact on output smaller.

Persistence of fiscal variables in our data The results presented in this paragraph square
with our empirical findings if the persistence of fiscal measures is high. In our data col-
lection we recorded as negative anticipated or unanticipated shocks every case in which
fiscal consolidation measures are reversed by the government in the years following the
beginning of the plan, and we found very few cases of this type. We also estimated the
inter-temporal correlation of fiscal shocks over a two-year horizon (see Figure 1) and we
found only positive or zero coefficients, indicating that rather than reversed, aggregate fiscal
components typically accumulate over the course of the plan.31

Monetary policy Following a cut in government expenditures, inflation is expected to

fall since firms’ marginal costs are lower, while following an increase in the wage tax, it
is expected to increase. This implies that the central bank will respond less aggressively
to a decrease in spending. We have tested the sensitivity of our results to monetary po-
licy by computing the instantaneous multipliers under a Taylor rule targeting both output
gap and inflation. In this case, the central bank should react less aggressively to a tax cut,
given the higher recessionary effects of taxes. We verified that the relative effects of the
three fiscal components remains the same, even assuming that the central banker equally
responds to inflation and output. The results for a standard calibration of the Taylor rule
are presented in Figure A.6 in Appendix C. Our result would only break down at the zero
lower-bound.32 In this case, a distortionary labor tax turns expansionary, given that higher
taxes boost inflation, implying lower real interest rates and thus higher demand (Christiano
et al., 2011; Denes et al., 2013). The level of persistence of our data makes this case not
suitable for theoretical study, given that a sufficiently high persistence of fiscal variables
31 Additional evidence on the high persistence of fiscal variables comes from previous works by Naka-
mura and Steinsson (2014) and Smets and Wouters (2007) that estimate persistence AR (1) coefficients on
government spending of 0.93 and 0.97, respectively.
32 See Farhi and Werning (2016) for a detailed discussion of fiscal multipliers at the zero-lower bound.

31
boosts expected inflation so much that the economy would exit the zero lower-bound right
away.33 Moreover, we do not wish to focus on the zero-lower-bound case because most
of our empirical sample refers to years where the nominal interest rate was positive. Pre-
vious work by Alesina et al. (2015) and Alesina et al. (2016) on consolidation measures
in 2009-2013 also did not find different effects on the economy compared to earlier fiscal
consolidations carried out in ”normal” times.

Open Economy Opening up the economy to trade in goods and financial assets does not
change our results on fiscal policy. Our numerical simulations show that, if anything, ope-
ning up to trade produces even more heterogeneity between the effects of public spending
cuts and tax hikes. We have verified this result with both floating and pegged exchange
rates and with incomplete asset markets.34 We provide the details of the model and some
intuition behind these results for the case of a government spending cut and a wage tax
increase in Appendix B3. For a more detailed analysis of different tax mechanisms in an
open economy we refer to Galı̀ and Monacelli (2005) and Farhi et al. (2014).

7.3 Extensions
We extend the model in three directions. First, we introduce capital to evaluate the response
of investment to fiscal adjustments. This is important since our empirical results suggest
that the response of investment is critical in determining the observed difference between
various plans. Second, we introduce fiscal plans in the form discussed in section 5. This
will allow us to simulate the effect of a fiscal consolidation within a framework that matches
the one used to obtain our empirical results. Third, we add sticky wages to match with the
standard assumptions of the New Keynesian literature.35

Household Capital accumulates according to the following rule

 
It
Kt+1 = It + (1 − δ ) Kt − φ Kt (6)
Kt
where φ (· ) is a standard convex adjustment cost function.36 Debt is in the form of
33 See Christiano et al. (2011) and Nakamura and Steinsson (2014).
34 Results are available upon request.
35 In order to model sticky wages, we assume that firms set wages as in Calvo (1983), with probability of

being able to revise the wage 1 − θw . Results are virtually unchanged in a model with flexible wages.
   2
36 We use the following expression: φ It σI It
Kt = 2 Kt − δ .

32
one-period bonds. Bt are the units of the numeraire good that are paid by bonds carried
from period t − 1 into period t. In each period the household chooses consumption, capital
and bond investment solving the following problem

+∞
max E0 ∑ β t U (Ct , Nt , Gt )
Ct ,Nt ,Bt ,Kt+1 ,It t=0

subject to the sequence of budget constraints

Bt+1   Bt Πt
(1 + τtc )Ct + It + = 1 − τtd wt Nt + rt Kt + (1 + it ) + + T Rt + T̃t (7)
Pt Pt Pt

Government The government budget constraint is

Gt + T Rt + T̃t = τtd wt Nt + τtcCt (8)

Gt + T Rt are total outlays (government consumption plus transfers) while revenues are
τt wt Nt + τtcCt . T̃t is an additional transfer that balances the budget period-by-period.37 To
d

describe the structure of fiscal plans we assume that taxes and spending components evolve
as follows38
3
a,G
Gt = (1 − ρ) Gss + ρGt−1 + etG + ∑ et,t−s (9)
s=1
3
a,T R
T Rt = (1 − ρ) T Rss + ρT Rt−1 + etT R + ∑ et,t−s (10)
s=1
3 d
a,τ d
τtd = (1 − ρ) τss
d d
+ ρτt−1 + etτ + ∑ et,t−s (11)
s=1
3 c
a,τ c
τtc = (1 − ρ) τss
c c
+ ρτt−1 + etτ + ∑ et,t−s (12)
s=1

For each of the four rules we can distinguish two different parts. The first two terms
represent a standard AR (1) process with persistence determined by ρ, which we assume to
be the same for all fours fiscal variables. Steady state values calibrate the average taxation
37 Under Ricardian equivalence the effect of transfers is neutral on consumption and output. We therefore
use this variable in order to ensure a balanced budget and avoid explosive paths of debt without introducing
distortions that would not allow to isolate the effect of other fiscal variables.
38 We introduce T R for the sake of exposition. However, this is the same type of transfers as T̃ used to
t t
balance government budget and hence have a neutral economic effect.

33
and spending in the sample. The second part also contains two terms: the first refers to
unanticipated fiscal measures, the second to the implementation of measures announced
in the past. We assign a value of ρ = 0.99 to simulate a highly persistent plan. Results
d c
do not change qualitatively as long as ρ is sufficiently high. etG ,etT R , etτ , etτ denote the
unanticipated component of each fiscal variable. They are defined as follows

 
etG = −εt Yss CIBt φ G,CB
+ T RBt φ G,T RB
+ T Bt φ G,T B
(13)
 
etT R = −εt Yss CIBt φ T R,CB + T RBt φ T R,T RB + T Bt φ T R,T B (14)
d Yss  d d d

etτ = εt CIBt φ τ ,CB + T RBt φ τ ,T RB + T Bt φ τ ,T B (15)
wss Nss
c Yss  c c c

etτ = εt CIBt φ τ ,CB + T RBt φ τ ,T RB + T Bt φ τ ,T B (16)
Css

where εt is a stochastic shock whose size depend on the magnitude of the unexpected
component of the fiscal plan. To make impulse responses comparable to their empirical
counterparts, each plan activates all four fiscal components according to the φ coefficients.
The φ 0 s are such that φ Z,JB is the share of fiscal component Z in a J-based adjustment, cali-
brated to be consistent with the actual composition of fiscal plans in our historical sample,
as reported in Table A.4 in Appendix C.
a,Z
The terms et,t−s in (9)-(12) represent - for each fiscal component Z - the implementation
in period t of measures announced in periods t − s, s = 1, 2, 3.39 The anticipated part of the
fiscal plan (announced at time t − s for implementation in t) has the following structure for
a generic component Z

a,Z Z
et,t−s = ϕs,Z et−s (17)

where the ϕ 0 s are those presented in Figure 1. These estimates, which add up to a
positve number smaller than one, imply high persistency of the corrections in our simulated
plans. In fact, when ρ is close to one, corrections are permanent unless the annnounced
part of the plan exactly compensates the unexpected corrections (i.e. su sum of the ϕ 0 s is
-1). Figure 8 shows the simulated shifts in spending and revenues as percentage of steady-
state output.40 The first period shock is unexpected, while additional expected shocks are
39 Announcement of future measures do not appear in these four equations directly, but show up in their
reduced forms. These equation thus correspond to those we estimated empirically.
40 Revenues are computed using the steady state values of the different tax bases and assuming no behavi-

34
announced for period two and three at time 1 and their magnitude is defined by the plan-
specific ϕ’s. In every period past shocks carry over depending on the persistence parameter
ρ. Note that each plan activates all four components, albeit in different percentages. This
generates the average correlation between fiscal components that we see in the data.

Figure 8: Fiscal Plans

Public Consumption-Based Transfer-Based Tax-Based

0.2 0.1 0.4

0 0.3
0
-0.1 0.2

-0.2
-0.2 0.1

-0.3 0
-0.4

-0.4 -0.1
-0.6
-0.5 -0.2

-0.8 -0.6 -0.3

0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5

Government Consumption Government Transfers Direct Taxes Indirect Taxes

7.4 Simulation Results

We follow CER and Galı̀ et al. (2007) for calibration of most parameters. We chose a dis-
count factor β = 0.99, risk aversion σ = 2, γ = 0.29, investment adjustment cost σI = 17,
capital share α = 0.3 and price and wage stickiness θ p = θw = 0.85. The share of transfer
and public consumption spending in steady state are Gss /Yss = T Rss /Yss = 0.2, while the
wage tax rate and the indirect tax rate under steady state are 0.36 and 0.2 respectively, ca-
librated from sample averages in OECD and European Commission data. See Table A.3 in
Appendix C for more details.41
We plot impulse responses for the first four years after the initial shock. Unexpected and
announced shifts in fiscal variables occur during the first quarter of each year. The shock
occurring in year 1 is unexpected, while the second and third year shocks are announced at
time t = 1 according to the plan-specific ϕ 0 s estimated in our sample. The overall size of
the fiscal consolidation is set to be one percent of steady state output.
Figure 9 presents the impulse response functions of output, consumption and invest-
ment for each of the three types of fiscal consolidation plans. Every variable is expressed
in deviation from steady state, exactly as in our empirical results.
oral response.
41 The parameters are calibrated on quarterly data. To match our empirical results, which are based on

annual data, we aggregate ex-post our simulations transforming them at yearly frequency using the average
deviation from the steady state in the year.

35
 Figure 9: Model Simulations

Output Consumption
0 0.4

0.2
-0.2
0

-0.4
-0.2

-0.4
-0.6

-0.6
-0.8
-0.8

-1 -1
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5

Investment
0

-0.2

-0.4

-0.6
Public Consumption-Based
-0.8 Transfer-Based
-1 Tax-Based
-1.2
0 1 2 3 4 5

The results on output qualitatively match our empirical simulations. The curvature
of the impulse responses is due to the announcements for periods t + 1 and t + 2 and is
similar to the one we observe in the empirical simulations. T RB and CIB plans are the
least harmful in terms of output, while T B plans are the most detrimental. The multiplier
of a T B plan is around - 0.6 on impact, and drops below - 0.8 the following years. These
multipliers are not far from our empirical estimates in the first three years after the start of
the consolidation (between - 0.6 and - 1), but smaller (in absolute value) than our empirical
estimates for years 4 and 5, which are around 1.4. Similarly, the output effects of T RB and
CIB consolidations are close to the empirical estimates in the first three years (between -
0.3 and - 0.6), but - unlike in the empirical analysis - they remain constant in years 4 and
5. Compared to these theoretical results, our empirics predict a faster recovery during CIB
and T RB consolidations and a more detrimental effect of T B plans in the medium-term.
Remarkably, the model can generate low spending multipliers despite the fact that transfers
are not considered government spending.
The results for private consumption are qualitatively consistent with the empirical esti-
mates for T RB and T B consolidations. On impact, T RB consolidations have a consumption
multiplier of - 0.1 (compared with -0.2 in the empirical estimates) and T B consolidations

36
reduce consumption by 0.6 on impact, by 0.8 the following year and slightly less than the
1 percent for the following years, in line with our empirical estimates. The results for CIB
consolidations are instead different from those estimated empirically. In the theoretical
model consumption rises under CIB plans, the opposite of what we found empirically. This
effect on consumption is consistently found in New Keynesian and Neoclassical models,
where increases in government spending generate crowding-out effects on consumption.42
Interestingly, the simulations for consumption qualitatively match the estimated pattern of
consumer confidence presented in the empirical estimates.
The response of investment is qualitatively in line with the empirical estimates. CIB and
T RB plans appear to be significantly less harmful for capital investment and their effects
are similar to our estimates. Magnitudes, however, are smaller. The multiplier for T B plans
on impact is close to the empirical estimates, but in the following years our estimates are 1
percent higher than what predicted by the model. The difference could be partly explained
by the fact that we excluded capital taxes from our model, while they are a non-negligible
component of tax-based measures in the empirical analysis.

The role of capital Capital accumulation exacerbates the negative effect of direct taxes
compared to the model in Section 7.2. As in the basic model, a hike in labor taxes generates
a negative substitution effect that leads to lower labor supply, which increases the labor
cost for firms, leading to lower labor demand and higher inflation. This, in turn, reduces
the marginal return on capital and induces a shift of savings from capital to bonds. In
short, when capital is introduced in the model, the negative and persistent shift in labor
supply has an amplifying effect on output running through the reduction in investment
(due to a lower return of capital) and to higher savings, due to an increase in the interest
rate set by the central bank. In the case of a fiscal consolidation implemented through a
government spending plan, the same effects are at play. However, because the effect of such
consolidation on labor supply is weaker, investment returns respond less. On top of that,
the reduction in inflation induces the central bank to lower interest rates. Compared to a
tax consolidation, prices fall both because aggregate demand falls and because the marginal
cost of production for firms also falls due to the lower rental cost of capital, only partially
offset by the wage increase. The lower interest rate increases the consumers’ opportunity
42 Galı̀et al. (2007) eliminate crowding-out by introducing rule-of-thumb consumers and non-competitive
labor markets, obtaining an effect that is closer to our empirical estimates. Another possible explanation for
the discrepancy between our empirical results and the simulations could be that a fraction of the expenditure
reductions included in CIB plans falls on goods that are complements with private consumption. Our model
instead assumes separability between private consumption and public spending.

37
cost of borrowing money, shifting them towards consumption or capital investment.

Non-Ricardian effects The models we have discussed so far feature Ricardian equiva-
lence. We now simulate a model with hand-to-mouth consumers, whose share is calibra-
ted to be 30% of all households according to the range estimated by Kaplan and Violante
(2014).43 We report impulse responses in Figure A.8 in Appendix C. As expected, transfer-
based consolidations are more recessionary and their effect is closer to that of government
spending-based plans, consistently with our empirical estimates.44 Tax-based consolida-
tions become more recessionary with a multiplier that approaches 1. We find an even
stronger effect of taxes – very close to the empirical estimates – if we increase the share of
hand-to-mouth consumers to 40%. Private consumption still increases in response to go-
vernment spending cuts because of a crowding-in effect. As showed by Galı̀ et al. (2007),
this result only breaks down if the labor market is non-competitive.

8 Conclusions
This paper contributes to the literature on the effect of fiscal consolidations in three ways.
First, we construct a new time-series with over 3500 exogenous shifts in fiscal variables
categorized between direct and indirect taxes, transfers, and other government spending
for 16 countries for the period 1979-2015. Second, we simoultaneously estimate multi-
pliers for three separate components of the budget: taxes, government transfer and public
spending. This is crucial to understand whether previous results on government spending
multipliers were driven by counfunding effects of transfers and to draw a straightforward
parallel with the theoretical literature. Third, we analytically study the fiscal multipliers in
a standard New-Keynsian model, and show that the persistence of fiscal measures explains
the heterogeneity in the output effect of different fiscal components.

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 APPENDIX FOR ONLINE PUBLICATION

Appendix A - Data

A1 - Motivations Behind Fiscal Consolidations

We provide some examples of the motivations of fiscal consolidation provided in the budget
documents consulted for the data construction. For a complete list of motivations see our
data appendix available at www.igier.unibocconi.it/fiscalplans.

Belgium 1992

From the National Bank of Belgium Annual Report 1992 (p. 17): “The reduction of the
public deficit is an urgent matter. This necessity would make it derisory, in Belgium, to
adopt any policy of restimulating demand by resorting to the budgetary instrument, or to
delay the rehabilitation effort in any way. This is the spirit in which the multi-annual so-
called ‘convergence’ plan prepared by the Government during the summer of 1992 and
since approved by the EC Council of Ministers must be examined.”

Canada 1991

From the 1991 Budget Speech, p. 2 “We will put the government finances firmly on the
course to a balanced budget. . . The Expenditure Control Plan announced in the 1990 bud-
get will be extended. The government will legislate mandatory program spending limits...
We will severely restrain the operations of government. Operating budgets will be frozen at
current levels and the wages and salaries of Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament, all
Order-in-Council appointments, and all federal public servants will be tightly restrained.”
The aim of the spending cuts was to “ensure that we achieve key fiscal goals in line with
the plan set out in my 1989 and 1990 budgets: We will eliminate new federal borrowing in
financial markets after 1993-94” (p. 3).

Finland 2010

From the Stability Program 2011: “General government finances are in a more vulnerable
position from which to meet expenditure pressures and the narrowing of the tax base arising
from population ageing. Ensuring the sustainability of public finances now presents a

42
greater challenge than before.” “Restoring general government finances in Finland will be
a particularly challenging task, because the baby boomers are now reaching retirement
age.”

France 2011

From the Stability Programme 2011-2014, April 2011, p. 4: “In this context, the Govern-
ment has resolved to pursue its fiscal consolidation policy in order to reduce the deficit to
3% of GDP by 2013, regardless of the economic situation. To this end, the Government
intends to stimulate the economy’s potential growth by expanding the structural reforms
undertaken since 2007, particularly in the areas of education, innovation, research and
development, and competition. The Government’s strategy in this regard is detailed in the
National Reform Programme. The Government has also intensified its efforts to control
public spending over the long term, and these efforts began to show results in 2010. Given
the already high level of the tax burden in France, the Government is determined to focus
its efforts on reducing spending.”

Germany 2006

From the Germany Stability Program 2007 (p. 20): “in the course of the consolidation
package implemented by the government in 2006, not only was the excessive deficit redu-
ced, but a decisive step was taken towards the sustainability and long-term recovery of the
government finances.”

Italy 1997

From the 1997 IMF Staff Report reports (pp. 4-5): “The conduct of macroeconomic poli-
cies in 1997 was guided by one clear beacon: ensuring Italy’s presence among the foun-
ding members of EMU. . . Accordingly, the fiscal retrenchment measures incorporated in
the 1997 budget were almost doubled from their originally envisaged size.”

United States 1990

The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act 1990 was a five-year fiscal consolidation program
enacted on November 5, 1990 (The 1990 Budget Agreement: An interim Assessment, p.6).
The act was motivated by deficit reduction, as expressed in the 1991 Economic Report
of the President: “The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 contains the largest

43
and most comprehensive deficit reduction package in U.S. history [. . . ] Economic theory
and empirical evidence indicate that expectations of deficit reduction in future years, if
the deficit reduction commitment is credible, can lower interest rates as financial market
participants observe that the government will be lowering its future demand in the credit
market”.

44
A2 - Data Sources
As explained in Section 2, the fiscal consolidation episodes refer to the ones gathered by
Devries et al. (2011). We have disaggregated the fiscal components by reading the fol-
lowing sources: OECD Country Surveys, IMF Recent Economic Developments reports,
Central Bank Macroeconomic reports, Treasury and Economic Ministry reports and Euro-
pean Commission Stability Reports. Other macroeconomic variables used in Figure 2 and
Figure 3 are described in the following table:

Table 7: Data Sources

Variable Source
For all except IRL: OECD Economic Outlook n. 97.
Nominal GDP Source for IRL: IMF WEO April 2015.
(GDP, value, market prices)
For all except IRL: OECD Economic Outlook n. 97.
Real GDP Source for IRL: IMF WEO April 2015.
(GDP, volume, market prices)
OECD Economic Outlook n. 97.
Private Consumption
(Private final consumption expenditure, volume)
OECD Economic Outlook n. 97
(Private Investments).
Private Investment AUT, PRT, ITA, IRL, ESP from ECOFIN AMECO
(Private Investments scaled with Total Investment
Deflator from same database)
Datastream Code: OCS005Q.
Consumer Confidence
(OECD Consumer Confidence Indicator)
Datastream Code: OBS085Q.
Investment Confidence
(OECD Industrial Confidence Indicator)
OECD Economic Outlook n. 97.
Short-Term Interest Rate
(Short-term interest rate)

45
Appendix B - Model Appendix

B1 - Instantaneous multipliers: preferences as in equation (3)

Household – Household’s preferences are:
 γ 1−σ
Ct (1 − Nt )1−γ
U(Ct , Nt , Gt ) = + ν(Gt )
1−σ
We log-linearize the labor-leisure and the Euler equation to derive respectively:

N 1 1
n̂t + ĉ = − τ̂ d − τ̂ c + ŵt (18)
1−N 1−τ d 1 + τc

N 1
((1 − σ )γ − 1)cˆt − (1 − γ)(1 − σ ) n̂t − c
τ̂tc =
 1−N 1+τ 
N 1
Et ((1 − σ )γ − 1)ĉt+1 − (1 − γ)(1 − σ ) n̂t+1 − τ̂ c + β (Rt+1 − R) − π̂t+1 (19)
1−N 1 + τ c t+1

Where ŷt = log (Yt /Y ss ), n̂t = log (Nt /N ss ), ĉt = log (Ct /Css ), τ̂td = τtd − τ d,SS and

τ̂tc = τtc − τ c,SS .

Phillips Curve and Policies – Log-linearized New Keynesian Phillips Curve:

πt = β Et πt+1 + κ mc
ˆt (20)

where κ = (1 − θ ) (1 − β θ ) /θ .
Log-linearized Taylor Rule:

1 − ρR
Rt+1 − R = ρR (Rt − R) + (φπ πt + φY ŷt ) (21)
β
where φπ is the coefficient on inflation and φy is the response to output deviations from
the steady state.
Log-linearized public expenditure process:

lnGt = ρG lnGt−1 + εtG (22)

Log-linearized market clearing:

46
 ŷt = (1 − g)ĉt + ĝt (23)

where g = G/Y and ĝt = (Gt /Yt − g).

Guess of solutions – Again, guess the following solutions:

πt = Aπ ĝt + Bπ τ̂ c +Cπ τ̂ d (24)

ŷt = Ay ĝt + By τ̂ c +Cy τ̂ d (25)

Find multipliers for π – Plug (23) in (25):

Ay − 1 By c Cy d
Ay ĝt + By τ̂ c +Cy τ̂ d = (1 − g)ĉt + ĝt =⇒ ĉt = ĝt + τ̂ + τ̂
1−g 1−g 1−g

Substitute into (20) and obtain:

Aπ ĝt + Bπ τ̂ c +Cπ τ̂ d = β (Aπ ρ ĝt + Bπ ρ τ̂ c +Cπ ρ τ̂ d ) + κ mc

ˆt

Substitute (18) into the equation above to get:

N
(1 − β ρ)(Aπ ĝt + Bπ τ̂ c +Cπ τ̂ d ) = κ( (Ay ĝt + By τ̂ c +Cy τ̂ d )
1−N
Ay − 1 By c Cy d 1 1
+ ĝt + τ̂ + τ̂ + W
τ̂ d + S
τ̂ c )
1−g 1−g 1−g 1−τ 1+τ

From which we can find the first three conditions using the method of undetermined
coefficients:

N Ay − 1
(1 − β ρ)Aπ = κ( Ay + )
1−N 1−g

N By 1
(1 − β ρ)Bπ = κ( By + + )
1−N 1 − g 1 + τc

N Cy 1
(1 − β ρ)Cπ = κ( Cy + + )
1−N 1 − g 1 − τd

47
 Which we can simplify into:
 
κ N 1 1
Aπ = ( + )Ay −
1−βρ 1−N 1−g 1−g
 
κ N 1 1
Bπ = ( + )By +
1−βρ 1−N 1−g 1 + τc
 
κ N 1 1
Cπ = ( + )Cy +
1−βρ 1−N 1−g 1 − τd

Find multipliers for y – Substitute the guesses and the Taylor rule into (19) and find the
three multipliers using the method of undetermined coefficients following the procedure
presented above for the multipliers on π.

Government Consumption – Using the method of undetermined coefficients we find:

Ay − 1 N
(1 − ρ)((1 − σ )γ − 1) − (1 − ρ)(1 − γ)(1 − σ ) Ay =
1−g 1−N
(1 − ρR )(φπ Aπ + φy Ay ) − ρAπ

Substitute the definition of Aπ to get:

 
κ 1 1
(ρ − (1 − ρR )φπ )( 1−g ) 1−g − 1−g (1 − ρ)((σ − 1)γ + 1)
Ay =   
(1−ρ)((1−σ )γ−1) N κ N 1
1−g − (1 − ρ)(1 − γ)(1 − σ ) 1−N − (1 − ρR )φy + (ρ − (1 − ρR )φπ ) 1−β ρ 1−N + 1−g

Indirect tax – Using the method of undetermined coefficients we find:

By N 1
((1 − σ )γ − 1)( ) − (1 − γ)(1 − σ ) (By ) − =
1−g 1−N 1 + τc
By N
ρ((1 − σ )γ − 1)( ) − ρ(1 − γ)(1 − σ ) (By ) +
1−g 1−N
1
−ρ + (1 − ρR )(φπ Bπ +φY By ) − ρBπ
1 + τc

Substitute the definition of Bπ to get:

48
 1−ρ κ 1


1+τ S
+ ((1 − ρR )φπ − ρ) 1−β ρ 1+τ c
By =  
((1−σ )γ−1)(1−ρ) N κ N 1
1−g − 1−N (1 − γ)(1 − σ )(1 − ρ) − (1 − ρR )φy − ((1 − ρR )φπ − ρ) 1−β ρ 1−N + 1−g

Direct Tax – Using the method of undetermined coefficients we find:

Cy N
((1 − σ )γ − 1) − (1 − γ)(1 − σ ) Cy =
1−g 1−N
Cy N
ρ ((1 − σ )γ − 1) − ρ(1 − γ)(1 − σ ) Cy + (1 − ρR )φπ Cπ + φY Cy − ρCπ
1−g 1−N

Substitute the definition of Cπ to get:

κ 1
((1 − ρR )φπ − ρ) 1−β ρ 1−τ d
Cy =   
(1−ρ)((1−σ )γ−1) N κ N 1
1−g − (1 − ρ) (1 − γ) (1 − σ ) 1−N − φY − ((1 − ρR )φπ − ρ) 1−β ρ 1−N + 1−g

Figure 5 – In Figure 5 we study the values of multipliers for different persistence levels
assuming ρR = 0 and φy = 0. Call ΩG , Ωτ d and Ωτ c the multipliers for G, τ d and τ c ,
respectively

(ρ − φπ ) κ − [γ (σ − 1) + 1] (1 − ρ) (1 − β ρ)
ΩG =  
1 N
(1 − β ρ) (ρ − 1) + (1 − g) (ρ − φπ ) κ 1−g + 1−N
1 κ
(φπ − ρ) 1−τ d 1−β ρ
Ωτ d =   N


(1 − σ )γτ d − 1 (1 − σ ) − (φπ − ρ) 1−β
κ
ρ 1 + 1−N

κ
(φπ − ρ) 1−β ρ − (ρ − 1)
Ωτ c =  
1
γ(1 − σ )τ c − (1 + τ c ) − (1 + τ c ) (φπ − ρ) 1−β
κ
ρ 1−N

In order to make the multipliers comparable across components we normalized the Ωs

to measure a shift of the aggregate fiscal component equivalent to 1% of GDP. In the case
of taxes we plot the multiplier corresponding to a 1% increase in revenues assuming the tax
base is at the steady-state value.

49
B2 - AS-AD Model Coefficients
The AD curve is derived from the linearized Euler equation combined with the Taylor rule.
The AS curve derives from a combination of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve and the
Taylor rule. The expressions for the AD and AS curves are the following:

1−ρ
AD : π̂t = − [Dy ŷt + Dg ĝt + Dτ s τˆt s ]
φπ − ρ

κ
AS : π̂t = [Sy ŷt − Sg ĝt + Sτ s τ̂ts + Sτ w τˆt w ]
1−βρ
The expressions for the D coefficients are:

(1 − σ ) γ − 1 N φy
Dy = − (1 − γ) (1 − σ ) −
1−g 1−N 1−ρ

(1 − σ ) γ − 1
Dg =
1−g

1
Dτ c =
1 + τc
The expressions for the S coefficients are:

N 1
Sy = +
1−N 1−g

1
Sg =
1−g

1
Sτ d =
1 − τd

1
Sτ c =
1 + τc

50
B3 - Open Economy Extension
We extend the closed economy presented in Section 7 by modeling a small open economy
that trades goods and one risk free international bond with the rest of the world. The home
household solves the following problem

∞ γ 1−γ ]1−σ
t [Ct (1 − Nt )
max E0 ∑ β + ν(Gt )
Ct ,Nt t=0 1−σ

Et∗ Bt (1 − τtd )Wt Πt E ∗ ∗ Bt+1 T Rt T̃t

s.t. (1+τtc )Ct + (1+it∗ )Bt∗ + = Nt + + t Bt+1 +(1+i) ++ +
Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt Pt

where Et∗ is the nominal exchange rate expressed as unit of home currency per unit of
foreign currency. Bt∗ is a risk-free international bond denominated in foreign currency that
pays a nominal interest rate it∗ 45 . Consumption Ct is an aggregator of foreign and home
goods

" # ζ
1 1−ζ 1 1−ζ ζ −1
ζ ζ ζ ζ
Ct = γH CH,t + γF CF,t

so that γH ∈ [0.5, 1] represents home-bias. The consumption of home and foreign goods
are a classic CER aggregator of individual varieties:
Z 1
ε/(ε−1)
(ε−1)/ε
Ck,t = Ckt ( j)
0

The rest of the elements in the maximization problem are the exact counterparts of the
closed economy in Section 7.
The production function of the firm combines labor input of the home country Nt , with
intermediate inputs Xt in Cobb-Douglas form:

Yt = Lt1−α Xtα

Intermediate inputs Xt are an aggregator of a continuum of home and foreign goods

with exactly the same form as consumption goods. The firm adjust prices in the currency
where the good is produced (producer currency pricing) with a probability θ p = 0.15, as in
45 Tostabilize the level of foreign debt we assume a debt-elastic interest-rate premium for it∗ as in Schmitt-
Grohe and Uribe (2003)

51
the closed economy benchmark model. We assume that the government expecditure Gt is
fully home-biased.
We produce impulse response functions of this open economy for 1% GDP shocks in
Gt , τtd , and τtc , to obtain numerical estimates of GDP fiscal multipliers under different
levels of fiscal shock persistence46 .
The response of the real exchange rate crucially depends on the dynamics of real inte-
rest rates differentials between the home country and the rest of the world, and hence on the
monetary policy rule and the asset market framework assumed. Under our simulation (with
incomplete international asset markets and Taylor rule stabilizing inflation) the real ex-
change rate appreciates after a cut in government spending, and hence the impact on output
is exacerbated compared to a closed economy case. When the cut in government spending
is more persistent, on the one hand the larger “crowding-in” effect of home consumers
mitigates the impact on GDP. On the other hand, the home currency instantaneously appre-
ciate further due to larger shifts in real rates differentials, causing a larger deterioration of
the trade balance. We have verified that the mitigating “crowding-in” effect compensates
almost exactly the deterioration of terms of trade, as persistence increases. On the revenues
side, wage taxes increase home inflation and decrease the demand of home consumers. As
in the case of a spending cut, in an open economy this policy causes a appreciation of the
exchange rate that exacerbates the negative effect on output. When the change in wage tax
is more persistent, on the one hand demand for home-produced goods falls even more and
on the other hand the appreciation worsens the trade balance deficit. This dynamic makes
tax rates effects unambiguosuly more recessionary as persistence increases.
Figure A.7 shows that under sufficiently large persisitence of fiscal shocks, the output
effect of a government spending cut is less recessionary than a wage tax spike and, if
anything, their difference is exacerbated compared to a closed economy model.47
Under fixed (or pegged) exchange rate, a cut in government spending lowers aggregate
home demand and lowers home expected inflation as in the floating exchange case, but in
this case we obtain an improvement in the terms of trade and a depreciation in the real
exchange rate through price changes. The latter effects help mitigating the output effect of
a government spending cut, compared to a closed economy model. In the case of a wage tax
increase, labor supply distortions directly affect the price of goods produced at home. This
46 The calibration of the economy is the same as in Table A.3. The level of foreign debt under steady state
and home bias are calibrated to match a 5% of GDP negative net investment position and a 10% export over
GDP share, as an average of all advanced countries in 2014 (IMF Balance of Payments Statistics).
47 See Table A.3 for details about the model calibration.

52
creates both a static distortion in the home labor market and a deterioration of the terms of
trade. Compared to a closed-economy model, or an open economy with floating exchange
rate, both effects imply a further decrease in output. Hence, even with fixed exchange rates
we confirm our main results.

B4 - Household’s optimality conditions in the model with capital

In order to solve the problem, we can set up the following Lagrangian:

∞
L = E0 ∑ β t U (Ct , Nt , Gt ) +
t=0
∞  
t d
 Bt Πt c Bt+1
E0 ∑ β λt 1 − τt wt Nt + rt Kt + (1 + it ) + + Tt − (1 + τt )Ct − It −
t=0 Pt Pt Pt
∞    
t It
+ E0 ∑ β µt It + (1 − δ ) Kt − φ Kt − Kt+1
t=0 Kt

The agent chooses respectively Ct , Nt , Bt+1 , Kt+1 , It according to the following first
order conditions:

Uc (Ct , Nt , Gt ) = λt (1 + τtc ) (26)

 
Un (Ct , Nt , Gt ) = λt 1 − τtd wt (27)

 
(1 + it+1 )
λt = β Et λt+1 (28)
(1 + πt+1 )

"  2   !#
σI It It It
µt = β Et [λt+1 rt+1 ] + β Et µt+1 1 − δ − −δ + σI −δ (29)
2 Kt Kt Kt

  
It
λt = µt 1 − σI −δ (30)
Kt
Equation (27) determines the labor/leisure choice in a competitive labor market; (28)
is the Euler equation where πt is inflation defined as Pt+1 /Pt − 1. Equations (29) and (30)
describe the capital and investment decisions.

53
Appendix C - Additional Tables and Figures
Fiscal Consolidation - Time Series

Figure A.1: Fiscal Consolidations in Europe and the United States 1980-2014

2.0
Debt Crisis
Plan Impact (% GDP)

1.5 High rates Pre−Euro Consolidations

Volker−era and OBRAs

1.0

0.5

0.0
1980 1990 2000 2010
Year

EU US

Every year displays the average implemented consolidation as a combination of unexpected

measures and measures that were announced in previous years, but are implemented in the
current year. The EU time series plots the average implemented consolidation across all
EU countries in our sample. The average size of fiscal adjustments is correlated between
the two areas. In Europe, however, the first wave of fiscal consolidation happened in the
mid 1980s, when countries with large public debts responded to rising real rates. The
US postponed fiscal adjustment by about a decade when the OBRA 1990 and OBRA 1993
plans were introduced. Large adjustments were further implemented in Europe in the 1990s
to meet the criteria required to join the monetary union and in response to the 1992-93
currency crises. Fiscal action was mild in Europe in the early 2000s and non-existent in the
US. Large fiscal measures were adopted by most European countries during the 2010-12
European debt crisis, a period of GDP contraction. A peak average adjustment of almost
2% of GDP was reached in 2012. Total implemented measures have been declining since
then. The US also implemented a large consolidation during the recovery from the Great
Recession of 2007-2009.

54
Short-term Interest Rate

Figure A.2: Short-Term (3 months) Interest Rate Response to Different Fiscal Plans

Source: OECD Economic Outlook n. 97. Short-term interest rates are based on three-
month money market rates where available. Typical standardized names are ”money market
rate” and ”treasury bill rate”.

55
Pre-Crisis Sample (1979-2007)

Figure A.3: Impulse Response Functions

GDP Consumption

Investment

Note. Impulse response functions computed on the sample 1979-2007.

56
Excluding Marginal Cases when Labelling Plans

Figure A.4: Impulse Response Functions

GDP Consumption

Investment

Note. Impulse response functions computed on the sample 1979-2014. We excluded all plans where the
difference between the shares of the largest two components is smaller than 10%.

57
 Excluding episodes whose dominant fiscal component is lower than 50% of the
consolidation

Figure A.5: Impulse Response Functions

Note. Impulse response function computed on the sample of consolidation episodes excluding those whose
dominant fiscal component is lower than 50

58
Instantaneous Multipliers with Alternative Taylor Rule (φy = 0.125)

Figure A.6: Multipliers with monetary policy response to output

0
g
td
tc
-0.2

-0.4
Output Multiplier

-0.6

-0.8

-1

-1.2
0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1
Persistence

Notes: the Figure shows the magnitude of the instantaneous multipliers as a function of ρ when we
adopt the same calibration as in Christiano et al. (2011). In order to make the multipliers compa-
rable across components, we compute the responses of output to a shift of each fiscal component
equivalent to 1% of GDP. Therefore, in the case of taxes we plot the multiplier corresponding to a
1% increase in revenues over GDP, assuming the tax base is at the steady-state level.

59
 Figure A.7: Multipliers in an Open Economy
-0.2
g
-0.4 td
tc

-0.6

-0.8

Output Multiplier
-1

-1.2

-1.4

-1.6

-1.8

-2
0.6 0.65 0.7 0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1
Persistence

Notes: the Figure shows the magnitude of the instantaneous multipliers as a function of ρ when we
adopt the same calibration as in Christiano et al. (2011). In order to make the multipliers compa-
rable across components, we compute the responses of output to a shift of each fiscal component
equivalent to 1% of GDP. Therefore, in the case of taxes we plot the multiplier corresponding to a
1% increase in revenues over GDP, assuming the tax base is at the steady-state level.
We plot the instantaneous (period 1) effect of each fiscal variable when we simulate a first-order
linearization of the model.

Instantaneous Multipliers in an Open Economy with External Debt

60
New Keynesian Model with Hand-to-mouth Consumers

Figure A.8: Model Simulations

Output Consumption
0 0.4
-0.1
0.2
-0.2
-0.3 0
-0.4 -0.2
-0.5
-0.6 -0.4

-0.7 -0.6
-0.8
-0.8
-0.9
-1 -1
0 1 2 3 4 5 0 1 2 3 4 5

Investment
0

-0.1

-0.2

-0.3

-0.4
Public Consumption-Based
Transfer-Based
-0.5
Tax-Based
-0.6

-0.7
0 1 2 3 4 5

61
Country-specific Inter-temporal Correlation

Table A.1: Inter-temporal Correlation by Country: 1981-2014

AUS AUT BEL CAN DEU DNK ESP FIN

ϕ1 0.48 0.36 0.14 1.34 -0.10 0.48 0.27 0.09
(0.19) (0.08) (0.14) (0.17) (0.12) (0.13) (0.06) (0.12)
ϕ2 -0.23 0 0.11 0.51 -0.03 -0.02 0.06 -0.01
(0.14) (0.04) (0.03) (0.11) (0.07) (0.08) (0.02) (0.02)

FRA GBR IRL ITA JPN PRT USA SWE

ϕ1 0.46 0.35 0.21 -0.26 0.25 0.89 0.47 0.57
(0.09) (0.22) (0.04) (0.07) (0.03) (0.29) (0.35) (0.11)
ϕ2 0.14 0.07 0 -0.02 0 0.12 0.34 0.34
(0.05) (0.18) (0.00) (0.04) (0.00) (0.10) (0.28) (0.08)
We report estimates of the correlation for one- and two-years ahead announcements for each coun-
try. We report a coefficient of zero, with no standard error, whenever there are too few observations
available for estimation. Canada records a cumulative response (the sum of the responses of one-
and two-year ahead announcements to an unanticipated correction) which is above unity. This me-
ans that, on average, Canada back-loads its plans, announcing that the largest fraction of a three-year
plan will be implemented in the second and third year. Most countries feature a positive but milder
response of announced measures to current unanticipated ones. This correlation is not statistically
different from zero in Great Britain and in the United States, where fiscal policy corrections ap-
pear to be implemented mainly via unanticipated measures. At the opposite end of the spectrum lie
Germany and Italy, where one- and two-year ahead announcements are negatively correlated with
unanticipated measures – though not significantly in the case of Germany and significantly, though
only at one-year ahead horizon, in the case of Italy. This suggests that at least part of a typical
Italian stabilization is transitory.

62
Fiscal Consolidations and Structural Reforms

Table A.2: Fiscal consolidations and structural reforms

New plan TB EB DB IB CB TRB
Product Market Reforms -0.247 0.564 -0.564 0.850 0.00405 0.309 -0.832
(0.381) (0.625) (0.625) (0.786) (0.709) (0.635) (0.603)
Observations 484 157 157 157 157 157 157

Labor Market Reforms -0.514 0.606 -0.606 1.077 -0.393 0.405 -0.927
(0.544) (1.061) (1.061) (1.267) (1.243) (0.911) (0.913)
Observations 415 135 135 135 135 135 135

Notes: A negative change in the dependent variables signals a reform toward more open markets.

63
Calibration

Table A.3: Calibration

Parameter Value Description

β 0.99 Discount factor (quarterly)
σ 2 Inverse inter-temporal elasticity of substitution
γ 0.29 Utility Parameter
ρ 0.99 Persistence of Fiscal Variables
σI 17 Investment adjustment cost parameter
Gss /Yss 0.2 Government consumption (% of GDP)
Tss /Yss 0.2 Transfers (% of GDP)
d
τSS 0.363 Average Income tax rate (2000 Average from OECD (2016))
c
τSS 0.199 Indirect tax rate (2000 average from European European Commission (2015))
α 0.3 Capital share
θ 0.85 Degree of price stickiness (quarterly)
θw 0.85 Degree of wage stickiness (quarterly)
A 1 Total factor productivity
Open Economy
γH 0.9 Home bias
ε 2 Elasticity of substitution (CES)
ξ 2 Elasticity of substitution in aggregator of home and foreign goods
B̄ss 0.1 Foreign Debt in steady state
Notes: we follow calibrations in Christiano et al. (2011) and Galı̀ et al. (2007)for most parameters.
Average tax rates are calibrated using data from OECD (2016) and European Commission (2015).

64
Share of Fiscal Components in Each Type of Plan

Table A.4: Share of Fiscal Variables in Each Plan Type

φ Z,JB τd τc G T
TB 0.37 0.29 0.20 0.14
CB 0.04 0.13 0.67 0.17
T RB 0.09 0.10 0.26 0.55

Notes: shares are computed over the total amount of measures that we were able to classify. This is
done to make sure that they sum to 1 in the calibration.

65