Measuring Fiscal Multipliers When it Takes Time to Implement Plans and to Balance Budgets¤

This paper highlights the importance of accounting for the protracted time frame over which fiscal policy is implemented, and over which its e®ects are felt, when estimating fiscal multipliers. It distinguishes published government tax/spending plans from subsequent outcomes, and it exploits this distinction to measure the e®ects of policy responses and policy initiatives. It also emphasises the interrelatedness of spending and tax decisions, and the longer term role of balanced budgets and debt accumulation in determining fiscal multipliers. We find overall US spending and tax multipliers at 0.5 and -0.6 respectively, but those for policy initiatives are three or four times larger than those for policy responses