Public Spending Management and Macroeconomic Interdependence

This paper studies the international macroeconomic effects of microeconomic measures, aimed at improving the efficiency of public spending management by increasing the price-elasticity of public consumption. In order to do this, we develop a New Open Economy Macroeconomics (NOEM) model in which the elastiity of substitution between differentiated goods in public consumption is different from the one in private consumption and the optimal mark-up is endogenous. This allows us to disentangle the international effects of structural reforms that improve the efficiency of spending in the public sector. We find that such policies can significantly affect the macroeconomic interdependence pattern that follows asymmetric fiscal shoocks. In welfare terms, we find that the countries with a larger government sector have an incentive to promote global "public competition policies".