Fiscal management of aggregate demand : the effectiveness of labor tax credits

We use a quantitative heterogeneous agent model with nominal rigidities and unemployment risk to analyze the effectiveness of several fiscal policies in stabilizing a demand-driven recession. The model delivers empirically realistic distributions of marginal propensities to consume (mpc) and labor participation elasticities (lpe) and matches the cross-sectional incidence of unemployment risk over the business cycle. We consider three fiscal stabilization packages: (i) a transfer to all low-income households, (ii) an increase in unemployment benefits to unemployed households, and (iii) an increase in labor tax credits to low-income working households. The labor tax credit is the most effective package to attenuate the recession, as it targets both high-mpc and highlpe households and thus jointly stimulates labor and consumption. This result holds despite the recession resulting in higher unemployment risk.