metadata: authors: 0: author: Huidrom,Raju
1: author: Kose,Ayhan
2: author: Lim,Jamus Jerome
3: author: Ohnsorge,Franziska Lieselotte
count: World
docna: 0: docna: Do fiscal multipliers depend on fiscal
            positions ?
docty: Policy Research Working Paper
subtopic: Macro-Fiscal Policy,Economic Adjustment and Lending,Mining & Extractive Industry (Non-Energy),Public Sector Economics,Macroeconomic Management,Public Finance Decentralization and
            Poverty Reduction
teratopic: Macroeconomics and Economic Growth,Industry
abstracts: cdata!: This paper analyzes the relationship
            between fiscal multipliers and fiscal positions of
            governments using an Interactive Panel Vector Auto
            Regression model and a large data-set of advanced and
            developing economies. The methodology permits tracing the
            endogenous relationship between fiscal multipliers and
            fiscal positions while maintaining enough degrees of freedom
            to draw sharp inferences. The paper reports three major
            results. First, the fiscal multipliers depend on fiscal
            positions: the multipliers tend to be larger when fiscal
            positions are strong (i.e. when government debt and deficits
            are low) than weak. For instance, the long-run multiplier
            can be as large as unity when the fiscal position is strong,
            while it can be negative when the fiscal position is weak.
            Second, these effects are separate and distinct from the
            impact of the business cycle on the fiscal multiplier.
            Third, the state-dependent effects of the fiscal position on
            multipliers is attributable to two factors: an interest rate
            channel through which higher borrowing costs, due to
            investors' increased perception of credit risks when
            stimulus is implemented from a weak initial fiscal position,
            crowd out private investment; and a Ricardian channel
            through which households reduce consumption in anticipation
            of future fiscal adjustments.
repnme: repnme: Do fiscal multipliers depend on fiscal
            positions ?
display_title: Do fiscal multipliers depend on
            fiscal positions
listing_relative_url: /research/2016/06/26533514/fiscal-multipliers-depend-fiscal-positions
topicv3: Current Account m1326278 1135,Fiscal Stimulus and Fiscal Rules m1326652 1073,Fiscal Policy m1327144 445,Monetary Policy m1327609 444,Nickel m1503517 2935
publishtoextweb_dt: 2016-06-28T00:00:00Z
historic_topic: Macroeconomics and Economic Growth,Industry
no_of_pages: 39
author_keys: 0: author_key: 1311541
1: author_key: 1320178
2: author_key: 955272
3: author_key: 1309022
model_extractions: WPS7724 Policy Research Working Paper 7724 Do Fiscal Multipliers Depend on Fiscal Positions?

_Raju Huidrom M. Ayhan Kose Jamus J. Lim Franziska L. Ohnsorge_ Development Economics Development Prospects Group June 2016
Policy Research Working Paper 7724

# **Abstract**

This paper analyzes the relationship between fiscal multipliers and fiscal positions of governments using an Interactive Panel Vector Auto Regression model and a large data-set of advanced and developing economies. The methodology permits tracing the endogenous relationship between fiscal multipliers and fiscal positions while maintaining enough degrees of freedom to draw sharp inferences. The paper reports three major results. First, the fiscal multipliers depend on fiscal positions: the multipliers tend to be larger when fiscal positions are strong (i.e. when government debt and deficits are low) than weak. For instance, the long-run multiplier can be as large as unity when the fiscal position is strong, while it can be negative when the fiscal position is weak. Second, these effects are separate and distinct from the impact of the business cycle on the fiscal multiplier. Third, the state-dependent effects of the fiscal position on multipliers is attributable to two factors: an interest rate channel through which higher borrowing costs, due to investors’ increased perception of credit risks when stimulus is implemented from a weak initial fiscal position, crowd out private investment; and a Ricardian channel through which households reduce consumption in anticipation of future fiscal adjustments.

This paper is a product of the Development Prospects Group, Development Economics Vice Presidency. It is part of a larger effort by the World Bank to provide open access to its research and make a contribution to development policy discussions around the world. Policy Research Working Papers are also posted on the Web at http://econ.worldbank.org. The authors may be contacted at rhuidrom@worldbank.org, akose@worldbank.org, jlim@worldbank.org, fohnsorge@worldbank.org.

_The Policy Research Working Paper Series disseminates the findings of work in progress to encourage the exchange of ideas about development issues. An objective of the series is to get the findings out quickly, even if the presentations are less than fully polished. The papers carry the names of the authors and should be cited accordingly. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions expressed in this paper are entirely those of the authors. They do not necessarily represent the views of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/World Bank and its affiliated organizations, or those of the Executive Directors of the World Bank or the governments they represent._ Produced by the Research Support Team
# Do Fiscal Multipliers Depend on Fiscal Positions?

Raju Huidrom, M. Ayhan Kose, Jamus J. Lim, and Franziska L. Ohnsorge<sup>∗</sup> Key Words: Fiscal multipliers, fiscal position, state-dependency, Ricardian channel, interest rate channel, business cycle JEL Codes: E62, H50, H60

> ∗Huidrom: World Bank, Development Prospects Group; rhuidrom@worldbank.org. Kose: World Bank, Development Prospects Group; Brookings Institution; CAMA; CEPR; akose@worldbank.org. Lim: World Bank, Development Prospects Group; jlim@worldbank.org; Ohnsorge: World Bank, Development Prospects Group; fohnsorge@worldbank.org. Earlier drafts benefited from comments by Syud Amer Ahmed, Jean-Louis Arcand, Raphael Espinoza, Alejandro Izquierdo, Aart Kraay, Sergio Kurlat, Jaime Marquez, Rahul Mukherjee, Ugo Panizza, Assaf Razin, Luis Serven, Cedric Tille, Carlos Vegh, Guillermo Vuletin, Sebastian Weber, Kei-Mu Yi, Hakan Yilmazkuday, Charles Wyplosz, and seminar participants at the Graduate Institute-Geneva, the 2015 Midwest Macro Conference, and the 2016 Conference on Fiscal Policy and the Macroeconomy at Johns Hopkins SAIS. We thank Kiwako Sakamoto for excellent research assistance. Ethan Ilzetski kindly shared data.
# 1 Introduction

During the Great Recession of 2008-09, many countries around the world - both advanced and developing - deployed fiscal policy to support activity. As a result, government debt and deficits increased in many countries, and they remain elevated (Huidrom, Kose, and Ohnsorge 2016). Against this backdrop of weak fiscal positions, there has been a revival of interest in fiscal policy as a macroeconomic stabilization tool. Yet, there is scant evidence regarding the extent to which fiscal policy is effective in stimulating the economy during times of weak fiscal position. The objective of this paper is to fill this gap in the literature. In particular, we ask: do fiscal multipliers depend on fiscal positions?

The question we study follows the finding in recent literature that an “average” fiscal multiplier which is assumed to apply universally is irrelevant and that multipliers depend on specific macroeconomic conditions. For instance, beginning with the work of Auerbach and Gorodnichenko (2012b), recent papers have established that multipliers tend to be larger during recessions than during expansions (Bachmann and Sims 2012; Candelon and Lieb 2013; Owyang, Ramey, and Zubairy 2013). The notion that fiscal multipliers depend on the state of the business cycle is well grounded in theory. During recessions, the multiplier effect from government spending can rise due to slack in labor markets, larger frictions in financial markets, and an increase in liquidity constrained agents.<sup>1</sup> The literature has, thus far, offered a convincing case that the phase of the business cycle should be regarded as a key conditioning state that may influence the effi cacy of fiscal policy.

Economic theory, however, does not limit the conditioning state to the phase of the business cycle alone. In fact, theory suggests that fiscal position of the government, as distinct from the business cycle, can be another important determining factor for the size of fiscal multipliers. This state-dependency of multipliers on fiscal position can operate via two channels. First, a Ricardian channel: when a government with a weak fiscal position implements a fiscal stimulus, households expect tax increases sooner than in an economy with strong fiscal position (Sutherland 1997; Perroti 1999). The perceived negative wealth effect encourages households to cut consumption and save, thereby weakening the impact of the policy on output. Thus, the net effects of fiscal policy on output, the size of the fiscal multiplier, may be negligible or even negative. Second, an interest rate channel: when the fiscal position is weak, fiscal stimulus can increase lenders’ perceptions of sovereign credit risk. This raises sovereign bond yields and hence, borrowing costs across the whole economy. This, in turn, crowds out private investment and consumption, reducing the size of the multiplier. Therefore, both channels suggest that fiscal policy is less effective when the fiscal stimulus is implemented from a weak initial fiscal position.<sup>2</sup>

> 1 These effects may be further amplified in the special case where monetary policy is also constrained by the zero lower bound (Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Rebelo 2011; Denes, Eggertsson, and Gilbukh 2013; Erceg and Linde 2014). In advanced economies, fiscal policy has received much attention given the crisis-induced zero lower bound environment that has constrained conventional monetary policy (Blanchard et al. 2010 and 2013; Delong and Summers 2012).

> 2 Sutherland (1997) formalizes the Ricardian channel by postulating that there exists a debt threshold at which the government makes fiscal adjustments, via increasing taxes, to remain solvent. Thus, households expect higher taxes to be more eminent when the government conducts an expansionary fiscal policy from a high initial level of debt. In Perotti (1999), such expectations of higher taxes can also result in increased tax distortions which are an additional source of negative wealth effects. With regard to the interest rate channel, Bi, Shen, and Yang (2014) theoretically establish that sovereign risk premia can increase nonlinearly as government indebtedness rises. Corsetti et al. (2013) highlight the interest rate is particularly relevant when monetary policy is constrained, for instance during a zero lower bound episode.

2
To estimate fiscal multipliers that depend on the fiscal position, we use an Interacted Panel Vector Autoregressive (IPVAR) model.<sup>3</sup> The model is essentially an extension of an otherwise standard panel structural VAR (SVAR), with the distinction that the VAR coeffi cients interact with (observable) state variables. Consequently, these coeffi cients become time-varying, and evolve endogenously according to these states. This results in a framework where the VAR dynamics and hence, the fiscal multipliers are conditional on the state variables which we take to be the fiscal position.

More importantly, since the state-dependency is captured by making use of the full sample, this nonlinear approach allows us to maintain enough degrees of freedom, thus allowing us to draw sharper inferences. This feature of the model is particularly useful when conditioning on multiple states of interest: a feature we exploit when we jointly condition on the fiscal position and the phase of the business cycle. The latter exercise allows us to evaluate whether the fiscal position is a unique state, different from the phase of the business cycle, which determines the size of the fiscal multipliers.

Applying our empirical methodology to a large dataset that covers 34 countries (19 advanced and 15 developing), at the quarterly frequency over the period 1980:1 — 2014:1, we empirically establish that the fiscal position is a key conditioning state that determines the size of the fiscal multipliers. In particular, estimated multipliers are systematically smaller when the fiscal position is weak (i.e. government debt is low), and vice versa when it is strong. In addition, we show that the state-dependency of multipliers on the fiscal position is independent of business cycle effects. That is, while we find multipliers to be larger during recessions than expansions (consistent with Auerbach and Gorodnichenko 2012b), the weaker (stronger) multiplier effect that derives from a weak (strong) fiscal position applies even when the economy is experiencing a recession or an expansion.

Furthermore, we provide empirical evidence that such state-dependent effects operate through the two channels highlighted above. When the government conducts expansionary fiscal policy during times of high debt, the private sector scales back on consumption in credible anticipation of future tax pressures due to the weak state of public finances (Ricardian channel) and private investment is suppressed plausibly due to an increase in economy-wide interest rate as perceptions of heightened sovereign risk become stronger (interest rate channel).

Some recent empirical studies have documented the importance of fiscal positions for fiscal multipliers. For instance, Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013) include measures of fiscal fragility in their analyses of multipliers. However, fiscal considerations are not the centerpiece of their analysis, and so they apply only certain debt thresholds, as opposed to our more general stance that allows these thresholds to emerge naturally from the data. Using a similar IPVAR approach like ours, Nickel and Tudyka (2014) provide estimates of multipliers that depend on the fiscal position for highincome European economies. However, they do not distinguish between the state of the business cycle and fiscal position. There is, therefore, an indeterminacy over whether the state-dependency of the multipliers is uniquely attributable to the latter. Using a different econometric methodology than ours, Auerbach and Gorodnichenko (2012a) discuss the joint conditioning exercise and find that large government debt reduces the stimulative effects of expansionary fiscal policy even during

> 3 The model has been used in various areas of empirical macroeconomics: exchange rates (Towbin and Weber 2013); capital flows (Sa, Towbin, and Wieladek 2014); and fiscal policy (Nickel and Tudyka 2014).

3
recessions. But their identification strategy requires data on government consumption forecast errors, which essentially limits their study to only OECD countries.

Our paper makes three contributions. First, by clearly distinguishing between the state of the business cycle and the fiscal position, we establish that the fiscal position is a unique state that determines the size of the fiscal multiplier. Second, we show the empirical relevance of the transmission mechanisms that underlay the state-dependent effects due to fiscal position: the Ricardian channel and the interest rate channel. Third, compared to previous studies, our sample includes a larger set of countries covering advanced and developing economies, thus providing a general result on the state-dependent effects due to fiscal position.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the econometric methodology. Here, we discuss the IPVAR model, the identification strategy, and the database. We present estimates of state-dependent multipliers in Section 3. In Section 4, we discuss the transmission mechanisms that highlight the Ricardian and the interest rate channels. Section 5 discusses robustness exercises and Section 6 concludes.

# 2 Empirical Methodology

## 2.1 Econometric Model

A standard panel structural VAR (SVAR) estimates a single set of parameters which then yields an “average”or unconditional multiplier. Our objective is to go beyond the unconditional multiplier, and investigate how multipliers can depend on specific macroeconomic conditions, in particular fiscal position of governments. For that, we deploy the Interacted Panel Vector Autoregressive (IPVAR) model where the main innovation, with respect to a standard panel SVAR, is that the model coeffi cients vary deterministically according to conditioning (state) variables. Thus, the IPVAR results in a framework where model dynamics and hence, estimated multipliers are conditional on the state variables. By choosing the conditioning variable to be a measure of fiscal position in the IPVAR, we estimate multipliers that depend on fiscal position.

The IPVAR model, in its structural form, is represented by: where for a given country i in period t, gc represents real government consumption, gdp real gross domestic product (GDP), reer the real effective exchange rate, and ca current account balance (as a share of GDP).

We take government consumption as the fiscal instrument and we track the effects of fiscal policy in terms of GDP. Separately, we check the robustness of our results by tracking fiscal outcomes in terms of private consumption and private investment (Section 4). Real effective exchange rate and the current account are included in the model to account for open economy features that characterize most of the countries in our sample. The matrix X captures additional controls, which include the time-invariant country fixed effects, and U is a vector of uncorrelated, i.i.d. (structural) 4
shocks. The shock corresponding to government consumption is the fiscal shock. Following Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013), we set the lag length as L = 4.<sup>4</sup> The impact matrix A0 (matrix of coeffi cients on the left hand side of Equation (1)) is lower triangular. This along with the ordering of the variables in the VAR is related to our identification scheme (discussed in detail in the next section). Both the impact matrix A0 and the coeffi cient matrices Al, l = 1, . . . , L (on the right-hand side of Equation (1)) comprises time-varying model coeffi cients that, for any given entry in row j and column k, evolve deterministically according to: where fs refers to the fiscal position.<sup>5</sup> Our baseline measure of the fiscal position is the government debt-to-GDP ratio. While the literature has used a variety of measures in this regard, our choice is in line with theoretical macro models, where government debt is the modal state variable.<sup>6</sup> Since measures of fiscal position are endogenous and move in tandem with the business cycle, we take lagged moving averages of all our fiscal measures to control for business cycle effects.<sup>7</sup> Equations (1) and (2) jointly denote the IPVAR system. When the law of motion in Equation (2) is suppressed, the IPVAR reduces to a standard panel SVAR which we use to estimate the unconditional multipliers. The latter serve as a baseline against which we compare the conditional multipliers from the IPVAR.

The matrices Al, l = 0, . . . , L determine the effects of structural shocks on the dynamics of endogenous variables in the VAR system. By conditioning the law of motion of the coeffi cients in these matrices on the fiscal position, as in Equation (2), we are allowing those effects to depend on the fiscal position. This scheme allows us to calculate impulse responses and hence estimates of fiscal multipliers conditional on a given level of fiscal position.<sup>8</sup> When estimating the VAR system, we make use of the full sample. This enables us to circumvent the degrees-of-freedom challenge that limits the ability of existing empirical models to account for joint conditioning on multiple states.

As standard in the literature, we compute the cumulative fiscal multiplier at horizon T as the discounted cumulative change in output until horizon T , as the discounted cumulative government consumption increases by one unit. That is,

> 4 We use the same lag length of 4 when we report results for specific country groups as well. Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013) note that the optimal lag length in the VAR varies across country groups. Choosing the same lag length (that equals 4) ensures that differences in the multipliers are not attributable to the lag structure of the VAR.

> 5 Including fiscal position in the law of motion in Equation (2) is tantamount to having interaction terms with fiscal position in the regressors of Equation (1). For this reason, we do not separately include fiscal position as an endogenous variable in the IPVAR.

> 6 For instance, while Riera-Crichton, Vegh, and Vuletin (2014) condition multipliers on fiscal balances, Auerbach and Gorodnichenko (2012a), Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013), and Nickel and Tudyka (2014) condition on government debt. For robustness, we present results when fiscal balances are the conditioning variable.

> 7 In particular, we take the 5-quarter moving average of the fiscal position, and then lag it by 2 quarters. Given the average length of the business cycle, this effectively allows us to abstract from changes in the fiscal state that may potentially be contaminated by cyclical movements. We allay any residual endogeneity concerns by jointly conditioning on the fiscal position and the phase of the business cycle.

> 8 More precisely, the impulse response calculation assumes that the initial level of fiscal position on which the impulses are conditioned prevails throughout the impulse horizon. In practice, fiscal position can also respond to the fiscal shock and its dynamics can have implications for fiscal multipliers (see Ramey and Zubairy (2014) for a similar point). Since fiscal position is not an endogenous variable in our IPVAR model, calculating impulse responses while taking into account the endogenous evolution of fiscal position in not possible.

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where r denotes the interest rate. We utilize the median short-term rate in the sample for this purpose which is about 7.4 percent.

From (3), the impact multiplier is obtained by setting T = 0 and the long-run multiplier by setting T at an arbitrarily large number, which is taken to be T = 20 (5 years) in our exercise. At T = 20, impulse responses in our model by and large revert to their unconditional means, and so we take this to be representative of the long run. In addition, we specifically report multipliers corresponding to one-year (T = 4) and 2-year (T = 8) horizons, when the fiscal multipliers typically peak. To calculate the fiscal multiplier using the coeffi cient estimates from the IPVAR, we first cumulate the discounted impulses of output and government consumption at different horizons and compute the ratio of the two impulses. That ratio is then multiplied by the average government consumption to GDP ratio in the sample to yield multipliers.<sup>9</sup>

# 2.2 and Estimation

To identify fiscal shocks, we rely on the standard recursive identification scheme of Blanchard and Perotti (2002). The key timing assumption in this scheme is that discretionary fiscal policy does not respond to macroeconomic conditions within the quarter.<sup>10</sup> Such a timing assumption can be motivated by implementation lags typically associated with discretionary fiscal policy. In the VAR model, this timing assumption is achieved by ordering government consumption first in Equation (1), before GDP. The timing assumption for the remaining variables in the VAR follows Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013): the current account is ordered before the real effective exchange rates. This ordering implies that GDP does not respond to the current account within one quarter, and that the current account does not respond within one quarter when the real effective exchange rate moves. The precise ordering of the latter two variables is, however, immaterial for our main results. Of course, there are alternative identification schemes used in the literature. For instance, Romer and Romer (2010) use a narrative approach to identify exogenous fiscal shocks for the US. Auerbach and Gorodnichenko (2012a) proxy exogenous fiscal shocks by forecast errors of government consumption for OECD countries. Due to data limitations, neither of these approaches is feasible for our sample that includes developing countries.<sup>11</sup> The IPVAR system, comprising Equations (1) and (2), is estimated with ordinary least squares (OLS) applied separately to each equation.<sup>12</sup> The estimated system yields model coeffi cients that

> 9 This step to calculate multipliers from impulse responses follows Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013). Since the conditional multipliers are estimated from the panel of countries, they reflect an average estimate across those countries included in the panel. Thus, we use the average government consumption to GDP ratio in the sample to calculate the multipliers rather than country-specific government consumption to GDP ratios.

> 10 One caveat of the recursive identification scheme is that the fiscal shocks identified using this scheme may be predicted by private forecasts (Ramey, 2011). Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013), who use a similar identification scheme and sample of countries like ours, provide evidence that this is unlikely the case.

> 11 There are alternative identification schemes used in the literature. For instance, Romer and Romer (2010) use a narrative approach to identify exogenous fiscal shocks for the US. Auerbach and Gorodnichenko (2012a) proxy exogenous fiscal shocks by forecast errors of government consumption for OECD countries. Due to data limitations, these approaches are not feasible for our sample that includes developing countries.

> 12 Because the error terms are uncorrelated across equations by construction, estimating the IPVAR equation by equation does not result in loss of effi ciency. See Towbin and Weber (2013) for a discussion.

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depend on the fiscal position such that a given level of the fiscal position maps out to a set of model coeffi cients. For presenting the results, we evaluate model coeffi cients at specific values of the fiscal position which are taken to be the percentiles within the sample. Confidence bands are calculated by bootstrapping over 300 iterations. We report median estimates, along with the 16 - 84 percent bands.

## 2.3 Database

Our main database comprises an unbalanced panel that covers 34 countries (19 advanced and 15 developing), at the quarterly frequency over the period 1980:1 — 2014:1.<sup>13</sup> Real government consumption and real GDP are based on the quarterly database in Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013) which are extended until 2014:1 by splicing from the OECD and Haver Analytics. Real effective exchange rates are from the narrow (wherever available) and broad indices of the BIS, and current account from the IMF’s WEO database. The short-term rate used for discounting the multiplier is drawn mainly from the IMF’s IFS database. For the robustness results, we augment this database to include quarterly real private consumption and private investment series. These are drawn from the OECD, Haver Analytics, and Eurostat. Additional details on the sources and definitions of all of these variables are provided in Table A2 in the Appendix.

The government consumption and GDP series (as well as private consumption and private investment) are converted into logarithmic form, and detrended using a linear quadratic trend as in Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013). The exchange rate is transformed into quarter-to-quarter growth rates, and the current account series is seasonally-adjusted using the X11 routine. All these series are detrended and demeaned on a country-by-country basis, which effectively controls for country fixed effects in the regressions.

We also employ another database that is an unbalanced panel with the same cross sectional and time series coverage as before but at the annual frequency. This includes the conditioning variables that are not explicitly required for the identification scheme to be valid in the VAR model but are necessary to estimate the interaction terms. These are government debt and fiscal balances as percentage of GDP which are drawn from the IMF’s WEO (October 2014) database; and government consumption-to-GDP ratios which we obtain from the World Bank’s WDI database.

# 3 Results

## 3.1 Unconditional Multipliers

To establish a benchmark, we first report estimates of the unconditional multiplier from a standard panel SVAR. For that, we suppress the law of motion for the coeffi cients in Equation (2). This renders the coeffi cient matrices Al in Equation (1) invariant across countries and time. Figure 1 presents the unconditional multipliers for the select horizons: on impact, 1 year, 2 years, and long run (5 years). Barring only a few periods in the impulse horizon, the unconditional impulse responses of output due to a positive fiscal shock are either negative or insignificant.<sup>14</sup> Indeed,

> 13 The list of countries is presented in Table A1 in the Appendix. Our developing-country coverage comprises primarily emerging and frontier market economies that have some ability to tap into international financial markets, which renders the fiscal solvency risks that underpin our nonlinear crowding-out mechanisms relevant. We exclude low-income countries not only because of data reliability issues, but also because they primarily rely on concessional finance for government expenditure, which would not reflect the crowding-out mechanisms.

> 14 When we split our sample into advanced and developing economies, our estimates of the unconditional multiplier are very similar to the ones reported in Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013). See Figure A2 in the Appendix.

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across all horizons considered, the uncertainty surrounding these estimates is suffi ciently large such that the multiplier is essentially statistically indistinguishable from zero. This echoes the often small and the wide range in the estimates of the fiscal multipliers as reported in previous studies (see Batini and Weber (2014) for a survey). The unconditional impulse responses presented in Figure 2 corroborate the small and imprecise estimates of the effects that fiscal policy has on activity on an average.

The main message we take away from above is that the unconditional multipliers can mask important state-dependencies as suggested by theory. The estimates of unconditional multipliers suggest that fiscal policy, on average, has no stimulative effects on the economy. However, as recent empirical work shows, fiscal policy can be stimulative during specific times, for instance during recessions (Auerbach and Gorodnichenko, 2012b). Accordingly, we turn, in the following section, to our conditional multiplier estimates.

# 3.2 Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers

Figure 3 presents the set of estimated fiscal multipliers (on the vertical axis) that depend on government debt (on the horizontal axis) - our baseline measure of fiscal position.<sup>15</sup> The four panels correspond to the four horizons previously selected. The figure shows that there is a systematic link between the size of the multiplier and the fiscal position: the median value of the multiplier decreases monotonically in debt, for all horizons reported. That is, the estimated multipliers for all the horizons are positive and significant for low levels of debt, but turn negative or insignificant when debt levels are high. For instance, the long run multiplier is close to unity when debt is low (strong fiscal position), but is negative for high levels of debt (weak fiscal position).<sup>16</sup> The difference in the estimated multipliers for low and high levels of debt is particularly significant at longer horizons. Our empirical results therefore lend support to the theoretical insights of earlier studies which show that a weak fiscal position can result in stronger crowding-out effects, blunting the stimulative effects of fiscal policy (Sutherland 1997; Perroti 1999; Corsetti et al. 2013; Bi, Shen, and Yang 2014).<sup>17</sup> Compared with the unconditional multipliers (Figure 1), the conditional multipliers paint a more nuanced picture of the effects of fiscal policy. For instance, at the 1-year horizon, the unconditional multiplier is small and insignificant. The estimated conditional multipliers at the same horizon (Figure 3) highlight that much of those small and insignificant average effects actually reflect episodes when fiscal positions are weak. On the other hand, when the fiscal position is strong, the conditional fiscal multipliers are not only larger than the unconditional estimates but they are also statistically different from zero.

To better grasp the economics underlying these results, it is useful to examine the conditional impulse responses associated with expansionary fiscal policy. For the purpose of illustration, we consider impulse responses conditional on two levels of debt: one corresponding to the 10th percentile in the sample (strong fiscal position) and the other corresponds to the 90th percentile (weak

> 15 Figure A1 in the Appendix provides the distribution of government debt-to-GDP ratio in our sample. Table A3 provides the specific percentile values from the sample.

> 16 Our estimates suggest that the long-run fiscal multiplier can be as low as -3 when the fiscal position is weak. One way to reconcile such a magnitude is in terms of the private investment response: private investment declines significantly in response to a positive fiscal shock during times of weak fiscal position (Figure 7).

> 17 The median multipliers for all horizons are presented in Figure A9 in the Appendix. Our headline result remains robust when we split the sample into advanced and developing economies. See Figure A3 in the Appendix.

8
fiscal position). For comparability, the shock size in each case is normalized such that government consumption rises by 1 percentage point on impact. The conditional impulses are shown in Figure 4.

While output increases on impact and remains significantly positive for around 2 years when the fiscal position is strong, such stimulative effects dissipate after about a year with output falling significantly below zero through till the end of the projection horizon.<sup>18</sup> In the case of government consumption, the conditional impulses for both strong and weak fiscal positions exhibit some persistence in response to the positive fiscal shock. However, fiscal expansion is more quickly unwound when the fiscal position is strong than weak. In other words, relative to the strong fiscal position, the government in fact spends more, especially during the initial periods, when fiscal position is weak.<sup>19</sup> Despite this, it is then quite remarkable that output falls more during times of weak fiscal position. This is a result that reinforces our earlier point that a weak fiscal position can blunt the stimulative effects of expansionary fiscal policy.

# 3.3 Distinguishing between Two States: Business Cycle and Fiscal Position

Recent studies (e.g. Auerbach and Gorodnichenko 2012a) have established that fiscal multipliers depend on the phase of the business cycle: they tend to be larger during recessions than expansions. To the extent that fiscal position is endogenous and varies according to the business cycle, it is possible that our empirical exercise so far of conditioning only on debt is simply capturing business cycle effects. Controlling for business cycle effects is therefore important to establish that fiscal position is a unique state that matters for the size of the fiscal multipliers. In this section, we undertake a multi-pronged sequence of empirical exercises designed to demonstrate this.

First, we tabulate a number of descriptive statistics to verify that there is little relationship between incidences of the two states. The top panel of Table 1 computes the relative frequency in which countries in our sample experience both a strong or weak fiscal position state and a recession.<sup>20</sup> The fact is that the two states rarely coincide: for the pooled sample, the concurrence of both states occurs around 2 percent of the time. Even for the category with the highest relative frequency - developing economies with a weak fiscal state undergoing a recession - the coincidence of these states is very infrequent (at most 3 percent of the time).<sup>21</sup> Second, we perform a number of formal tests that compares the distribution of fiscal position (debt-to-GDP ratio) during recessions and expansions. These are reported in the bottom panel of Table 1. It is clear that any differences - to the extent that they exist - are minimal: for instance, the average debt-to-GDP ratio in the expansionary state is 52 percent, compared to 54 percent

> 18 To allay any concerns that the choice of the 10th and 90th percentiles merely reflects outliers, we report results for the 25th and the 75th percentiles as well (Figure A4 in the Appendix). Even though the differences in the conditional impulse responses are admittedly not as sharp as before, they are statistically significant in the relevant horizons so that our conclusion remains robust.

> 19 Nickel and Tudyka (2014) also report similar findings, although government consumption in their study is unwound at longer horizons during times of high debt.

> 20 Like before, the strong fiscal position corresponds to the 10th percentile of debt-to-GDP ratio in the sample while the weak fiscal position corresponds to the 90th percentile. The recessionary state is defined as the period from peak to trough as determined by the Harding and Pagan (2002) business cycle dating algorithm. We discuss alternative approaches to date the business cycle in the robustness exercise in Section 5.

> 21 We check the relative frequencies at the country level as well. There are several countries for which there are no recessionary episodes either during periods of strong or weak fiscal positions. Beyond those countries, incidences of recessions are generally lower when fiscal position is strong. These results are available upon request.

9
during recessions. More formally, the t tests all fail to reject the null hypothesis of no difference in means at the standard confidence levels. In effect, there is little evidence that the distributions of fiscal position in our sample differ between recessionary and expansionary states.

Our third approach is to estimate fiscal multipliers conditional on the fiscal position while explicitly controlling for business cycle effects. For that, we replace Equation (2) by the following expression that jointly conditions the model coeffi cients on both the fiscal position and the business cycle state as follows: where bc is an indicator variable that equals 1 for a recession and 0 for an expansion as determined by the Harding-Pagan (2002) dating algorithm. The IPVAR system now comprises of Equations (1) and (4).

Figure 5 presents estimates of the multipliers for different fiscal positions during recessions. Compared with the earlier result (Figure 3), which effectively spans both phases of the business cycle, the magnitude of the multipliers during recessions (Figure 5) is larger for any given level of fiscal position. For instance, the point estimate of the long-run multiplier for the strongest fiscal position during recessions almost reaches 1.5, while it is less than 1 when conditioned only on the fiscal position. This echoes the empirical literature that has argued that multipliers tend to be larger during recessions (Auerbach and Gorodnichenko 2012b; Bachmann and Sims 2012; Candelon and Lieb 2013). Our results show that multipliers remain dependent on fiscal position even during recessions: estimated multipliers decline monotonically in debt for all horizons.<sup>22</sup> One important corollary of this result is that the multiplier can be small even during recessions, if the fiscal position is weak. This is especially the case in the longer-run, as the implications of a heavier debt burden on private demand ultimately play out. Where the fiscal position is especially weak, the multiplier even turns significantly negative. Our central result, therefore, nuances other findings that multipliers are larger during recessions than expansions. Conditioning our IPVAR only on the phase of the business cycle, we indeed obtain similar results reported in earlier studies (Figure 6) (e.g. Auerbach and Gorodnichenko 2012b).<sup>23</sup> Yet, our results based on the joint conditioning show that, even during recessions, multipliers can be small and even negative if fiscal position is weak.

# 4 Why Fiscal Positions Matter - Transmission Channels

The key mechanism that could reduce multipliers when fiscal positions are weak, especially in the long run, rests on private agents’ concerns about fiscal sustainability when the government implements expansionary fiscal policy. As mentioned earlier, this can operate via reductions in private consumption as households anticipate a larger tax burden in the future (the Ricardian channel), or via reductions in consumption and investment by investors facing an ever-greater

> 22 The state-dependency of fiscal multipliers on the fiscal position also holds during expansions (Figure A5). For a given level of government debt, the estimated multipliers are larger during recessions than expansions.

> 23 Despite the differences in econometric approaches and sample, the precise magnitude of our multipliers during recessions and expansions is comparable with Auerbach and Gorodnichenko (2012b). For instance, their point estimate of the long-run multiplier (when government consumption is the fiscal instrument) is around 1.47. The corresponding number from the IPVAR model is around 1.67.

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borrowing costs (the interest rate channel). In this section, we attempt to assess the relative strength of these two channels.

We first consider the Ricardian channel by augmenting the IPVAR system with private consumption, with the model coeffi cients conditioned on fiscal position. For this specification, we order private consumption right after GDP, thus keeping intact the recursive identification scheme of Blanchard and Perotti (2002). Ordering the current account and exchange rates last preserves a domestic macroeconomic bloc in the IPVAR. The conditional impulse responses of private consumption and output to the fiscal shock, for both the strong and the weak fiscal position, are presented in the left panel of Figure 7. As before, the strong and the weak fiscal positions respectively correspond to the 10th and 90th percentile of debt-to-GDP ratio from our sample. We check the robustness of our results by choosing the 25th and 95th percentiles (Figure A6 in the Appendix).

The results are unambiguous: when the fiscal position is strong, private consumption rises following the impact of the fiscal shock, peaking around a year after the shock before returning to its initial level. On the other hand, when the fiscal position is weak, private consumption falls precipitously and remains depressed for around three years after the fiscal shock. During these horizons, the difference in the response of private consumption is also statistically significant, judging from the non-overlapping confidence bands. The divergence in private consumption responses across strong and weak fiscal positions is consistent with the Ricardian channel outlined earlier where households reduce consumption in anticipation of more imminent fiscal adjustments during times of high government debt (Sutherland 1997 and Perroti 1999).<sup>24</sup> Our result on the divergence of private consumption paths provides a new dimension on the debate concerning how private consumption responds to fiscal stimulus. Perroti (2005) finds that private consumption rises in response to a positive fiscal shock, while Ramey (2011) shows that private consumption actually declines —a difference which is attributed to the specific identification scheme used in these studies. Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013) reconcile these two contrasting views in terms of monetary policy behavior and argue that once monetary policy is controlled for, fiscal policy has expansionary effects on private consumption. Our results, by explicitly showing how a weak fiscal position undermines and reverses the response of private consumption, suggest an additional aspect that can help reconcile the conflicting results found in the literature.

For the interest rate channel, we would ideally introduce a proxy for sovereign risk, such as the yield spread, directly into our IPVAR system. However, this is precluded by the paucity of credible long-term rates, especially in developing countries, at the quarterly frequency. We thus proceed with our second-best option, which is to augment private investment into the IPVAR system. As in the case of private consumption, private investment is ordered after GDP but before the current account. Since private investment is particularly sensitive to borrowing costs, a reduction in private investment during times of weak fiscal position is indicative of the interest rate channel. Figure 7 presents the conditional impulse responses of private investment for both weak and strong fiscal positions.<sup>25</sup>

> 24 The estimates of the multipliers with this specification are broadly in line with the baseline estimates. More importantly, our headline result that multipliers depend on fiscal position holds when private consumption is included in the IPVAR. See Figure A7 in the Appendix.

> 25 The multipliers are presented in Figure A8 in the Appendix. Our main result that multipliers depend on fiscal position generally holds.

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The contrast between strong and weak fiscal positions for the path of private investment is, again, striking. Investment rises significantly when the fiscal position is strong, peaking after around 6 quarters, but remaining sustained through at least 10 quarters. When the fiscal position is weak, investment drops sharply after about a year, and never fully recovers, failing to revert even after 5 years. The difference in the impulse responses across strong and weak fiscal positions is also statistically significant (barring the initial few quarters). These responses are qualitatively similar to those of private consumption but much larger in magnitude. This suggests that investor concerns about borrowing cost could be an additional channel for dampening the effectiveness of fiscal policy.

# 5 Robustness Exercises

We consider three exercises to check the robustness of our headline findings: (a) an alternative measure of fiscal position where we use fiscal balances instead of government debt; (b) an alternative dating scheme of the business cycle similar to Auerbach and Gorodnichenko (2012b) to define recessions as periods with a significant probability of negative output growth; (c) estimating fiscal position dependent multipliers while controlling for exchange rate regimes.<sup>26</sup> For the last exercise, we estimate the IPVAR model by jointly conditioning the model coeffi cients on both the fiscal position and an exchange rate regime dummy. The law of motion of the model coeffi cients then is: where er is an indicator variable that equals 1 for a fixed exchange rate regime and 0 for a flexible exchange rate regime.<sup>27</sup> The measure of fiscal position, fs, is taken to be the government debt-to-GDP ratio as in the baseline specification.

Table 2 presents the results. The top panel shows the range of estimates of the fiscal multipliers for the strongest and weakest fiscal positions which, like before, are taken to be fiscal balances corresponding to the 10th (weak) and 90th (strong) percentiles from the sample. By and large, our baseline results are qualitatively similar when fiscal balances, instead of debt-to-GDP ratios, are used to measure fiscal positions. That is, the multipliers are systematically larger for high fiscal balances (strong fiscal position) than low fiscal balances (i.e. weak fiscal position). This is true regardless of the horizons considered and when jointly conditioned on the state of the business cycle. The middle panel of Table 2 presents the multipliers using the alternative definition of recessions. Our headline result —multipliers depend on the fiscal position even during recessions - generally holds, especially at longer horizons. The bottom panel presents the fiscal positiondependent multipliers for flexible and fixed exhange rates. Consistent with the literature (e.g. Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh 2013), for a given fiscal position, multipliers are larger in fixed than flexible exchange rate regimes. That said, the state dependency on fiscal position still holds: multipliers are larger when fiscal position is strong than weak irrespective of the exchange rate regime.

> 26 Following Auerbach and Gorodnichenko (2012b), we define the indicator function, I(zit) = 1+exp(exp(−−γzγzitit) )<sup>,where</sup> zit is taken to be 7 quarter moving averages of quarter-to-quarter growth rates normalized to have a zero mean and a unit variance. Calibrating γ as 1.5 > 0, the indicator function pins down the probability of negative output growth. Recessions are then defined as periods where that probability exceeds a threshold, which in our implementation is taken to be 80 percent.

> 27 The exchange rate regime classification follows Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013) which is extended until 2014 using the IMF de-facto classification of exchange rates.

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# 6 Conclusion

We document that fiscal multipliers tend to be larger when the fiscal position is stronger. For instance, our estimates suggest that the long run multiplier can be as big as unity when the fiscal position is strong but it can turn negative when the fiscal position is weak. A weak fiscal position can undermine fiscal multipliers even during recessions. Consistent with theoretical predictions, we provide empirical evidence suggesting that weak fiscal positions are associated with smaller multipliers through both a Ricardian channel and an interest rate channel.

Future work can usefully focus on two issues. First, while data limitations have precluded a deeper and more direct exploration of the interest rate channel, future research, perhaps with more comprehensive and representative data on yield spreads, can seek to improve our understanding of the interest rate channel. Second, fiscal-monetary interactions can be studied using a similar empirical model like ours. In particular, one can evaluate whether monetary policy offers a more effective stabilization tool during times of weak fiscal position.

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# References

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14
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# **Figure 1: Unconditional Multipliers**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 0.4<br>0.2<br>0.0<br>-0.2<br>-0.4<br>-0.6<br>-0.8<br>Impact 1 year 2 years Long run<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graph shows the unconditional fiscal multipliers for select horizons. These are based on estimates from the SVAR model of Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013) that features with no interaction terms. Bars represent the median, and error bands are the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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**Figure 2: Unconditional Impulse Responses**

<!-- Start of picture text -->
1.20 A. Government Consumption 0.08 B. GDP<br>1.00 0.06<br>0.04<br>0.80<br>0.02<br>0.60<br>0.00<br>0.40<br>-0.02<br>0.20<br>-0.04<br>0.00 -0.06<br>-0.20 -0.08<br>1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20<br><!-- End of picture text -->

_Note:_ The graphs show the unconditional impulse responses (percentage points) to a positive shock to government consumption. These are based on estimates from the SVAR model of Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013) that features no interaction terms. Solid lines represent the median, and dotted lines are the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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# **Figure 3: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers**

<!-- Start of picture text --> A. On Impact B. 1 Year<br>0.3 0.7<br>0.6<br>0.2 0.5<br>0.4<br>0.1<br>0.3<br>0.2<br>0.0<br>0.1<br>-0.1 0.0<br>-0.1<br>-0.2 -0.2<br>12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4 12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4<br>C. 2 Years D. Long Run<br>1.0 2.0<br>0.8<br>1.0<br>0.6<br>0.4<br>0.0<br>0.2<br>0.0 -1.0<br>-0.2<br>-2.0<br>-0.4<br>-0.6<br>-3.0<br>-0.8<br>-1.0 -4.0<br>12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4 12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graphs show the conditional fiscal multipliers for different levels of fiscal position at select horizons. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model, where model coefficients are conditioned only on fiscal position. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is the measure of fiscal position and the values shown on the x-axis correspond to the 5<sup>th</sup> to 95<sup>th</sup> percentiles from the sample. Fiscal position is strong (weak) when government debt is low (high). Solid lines represent the median, and dotted bands are the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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# **Figure 4: Conditional Impulse Responses**

<!-- Start of picture text -->
1.20 A. Government Consumption 0.15 B. GDP<br>1.00 0.10<br>0.05<br>0.80<br>0.00<br>0.60<br>-0.05<br>0.40<br>-0.10<br>0.20<br>-0.15<br>0.00 -0.20<br>-0.20 -0.25<br>1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20<br>Weak fiscal position Strong fiscal position<br><!-- End of picture text -->

_Note:_ The graphs show the conditional impulse responses (percentage points) for the strong (blue) and the weak (red) fiscal positions. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model, where model coefficients are conditioned only on fiscal position. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is the measure of fiscal position. The strong fiscal position corresponds to the 10<sup>th</sup> percentile of debt-to-GDP ratio from the sample, while the weak fiscal position corresponds to the 90<sup>th</sup> percentile. Solid lines represent the median, and dotted bands a`re the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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**Table 1: Comparison of Fiscal and Business Cycle States**

||**Full Sample**|**Advanced**|**Developing**|
|---|---|---|---|
|**Relative frequency**<sup>**a**</sup>||||
|Strong fiscal and recessionary state|2.2|2.4|1.8|
|Weak fiscal and recessionarystate|2.1|2.4|3.0|
|**Test of differences**||||
|In means<sup>b</sup>|[52.3, 54.0]|[57.3, 57.9]|[43.4, 44.6]|
||<br>0.25|<br>0.76|<br>0.55|

_Note:_ The table shows the association (or lack thereof) between different fiscal positions and the recessionary state. a The top panel shows the relative frequency (percent of observations) of the strong fiscal position and the recessionary state, and that of weak fiscal position and the recessionary state. The frequencies are reported for the full sample and also for specific country groups: advanced and developing economies. The strong (weak) fiscal position corresponds to the 10<sup>th</sup> (90<sup>th</sup> ) percentile of debt-to-GDP ratio in each sample. The bottom panel reports results that show the statistical significance of the difference of those relative frequencies. The recessionary state is determined by the Harding-Pagan (2002) business cycle dating algorithm.

b The top entry shows the average debt-to-GDP ratio (in percent) during expansions (left) and recessions (right). The bottom entry shows the p-values of two-group _t-test_ of difference in means with unequal variances.

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**Figure 5: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers during Recessions**

<!-- Start of picture text --> A. On Impact B. 1 Year<br>0.7 1.6<br>0.6 1.4<br>1.2<br>0.5<br>1.0<br>0.4<br>0.8<br>0.3<br>0.6<br>0.2<br>0.4<br>0.1 0.2<br>0.0 0.0<br>12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4 12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4<br>C. 2 Years D. Long Run<br>2.5 2.5<br>2.0<br>2.0<br>1.5<br>1.5 1.0<br>0.5<br>1.0<br>0.0<br>0.5 -0.5<br>-1.0<br>0.0<br>-1.5<br>-0.5 -2.0<br>12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4 12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graphs show the conditional fiscal multipliers during recessions for different levels of fiscal position at select horizons. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model, where model coefficients are jointly conditioned on fiscal position and the phase of the business cycle. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is the measure of fiscal position and the values shown on the x-axis correspond to the 5<sup>th</sup> to 95<sup>th</sup> percentiles from the sample. Recessions are determined by the Harding-Pagan (2002) business cycle dating algorithm. Fiscal position is strong (weak) when government debt is low (high). Solid lines represent the median, and dotted bands are the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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**Figure 6: Fiscal Multipliers by Business Cycles only**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 4<br>Recessions Expansions<br>3<br>2<br>1<br>0<br>-1<br>-2<br>On Impact 1 year 2 years Long run<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graph shows the conditional fiscal multipliers during recessions at select horizons. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model, where model coefficients are conditioned only on the phase of the business cycle. Recessions are determined by the Harding-Pagan (2002) business cycle dating algorithm. Bars represent the median, and error bands are the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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# **Figure 7: Transmission Channels**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 0.15 A. Private Consumption 0.40 B. Private Investment<br>0.10<br>0.20<br>0.05<br>0.00<br>0.00<br>-0.05 -0.20<br>-0.10<br>-0.40<br>-0.15<br>-0.60<br>-0.20<br>-0.25 -0.80<br>1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20<br>Weak fiscal position Strong fiscal position<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graphs show the conditional impulse responses (percentage points) of private consumption and private investment due to a positive shock to government consumption for the strong (blue) and the weak (red) fiscal positions. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model, where model coefficients are conditioned only on fiscal position. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is the measure of fiscal position. The strong fiscal position corresponds to the 10<sup>th</sup> percentile of debt-to-GDP ratio from the sample, while the weak fiscal position corresponds to the 90<sup>th</sup> percentile. Solid lines represent the median, and dotted bands are the 1684 percent confidence bands.

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**Table 2: Robustness Checks: Fiscal Multipliers**

|||**Impact**|**1year**<br>_Fiscal po_|**2years**<br>_sition only_|**Long run**|**Impact**<br>_Re_|**1year**<br>_cessions an_|**2years**<br>_d fiscal posit_|**Long run**<br>_ion_|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Alternative fiscal position**||||||||||
|Fiscal balances|_Strong_<br>_Weak_|[0.16, 0.31]<br>[-0.08,0.08]|[0.29, 0.63]<br> [0.16,0.54]|[0.43, 1.10]<br>[0.19,0.76]|[0.39, 1.38]<br> [-0.05,0.97]|[0.37, 0.57]<br> [-0.02,0.24]|[1.34, 2.00]<br> [1.04,1.78]|[1.76, 2.66]<br>[1.25,2.16]|[1.09, 2.35]<br>[0.65,1.74]|
|**Alternative business cycle dates**||||||||||
|Auberch and Gorodnichenko (2012b)|_Strong_<br>_Weak_|...<br>...|...<br>...|...<br>...|...<br>...|[0.54, 0.85]<br>[0.48,0.80]|[1.23, 1.75]<br>[1.36,1.96]|[1.13, 1.78]<br>[0.85,1.52]|[0.61, 1.48]<br> [-0.56,0.54]|
|||_Flexible_|_exchange ra_|_te and fiscal_|_position_|_Fixed e_|_xchange rat_|_e and fiscal_|_position_|
|<br>**Controlling for exchange rate regime**|<br>_Strong_<br>_Weak_|<br>[0.02, 0.23] <br>[-0.14,0.07]|<br> [-0.06, 0.44]<br> [-0.23,0.15]|<br> [-0.13, 0.62]<br> [-0.63,-0.08|<br> [-0.37, 0.81] <br>][-2.28,-0.90]|<br> [0.72, 1.01]<br> [0.53,0.90]|<br>[2.11, 2.84]<br>[1.57,2.32]|<br>[2.26, 3.29]<br>[1.10,2.20]|<br>[1.44, 3.18]<br> [-7.81,-0.72]|

_Note:_ The table presents estimates of fiscal multipliers from alternative specifications of the IPVAR model for the strong and the weak fiscal positions. The top panel presents the multipliers using an alternative measure of fiscal position. The middle panel considers an alternative business cycle dating scheme. The bottom panel presents estimates of fiscal position-dependent multipliers for flexible and fixed exchange rate regimes. Fiscal position is strong (weak) when government debt is high (low) or when fiscal balances are low (high). When fiscal position is measured in terms of government debt, the strong position corresponds to the 10<sup>th</sup> percentile and the weak position corresponds to the 90<sup>th</sup> percentile. When fiscal balances are taken as the measure of fiscal position, the strong position corresponds to the 90<sup>th</sup> percentile and the weak position corresponds to the 10<sup>th</sup> percentile. Numbers reported in square brackets are the 16-84 percent confidence range.

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# **List of Figures and Tables in the Supplementary Appendix**

Figure A1: Distribution of Fiscal Position Figure A2: Unconditional Multipliers Figure A3: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers by Country Groups Figure A4: Conditional Impulse Responses – Alternative Cut-offs Figure A5: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers during Expansions Figure A6: Transmission Channels – Alternative Cut-offs Figure A7: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers with Private Consumption Figure A8: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers with Private Investment Figure A9: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers – All Horizons Table A1: Country Coverage Table A2: Data Sources Table A3: Distribution of Fiscal Position 25
# **Supplementary Appendix**

**Do Fiscal Multipliers Depend on Fiscal Positions? Raju Huidrom, M. Ayhan Kose, Jamus J. Lim, and Franziska L. Ohnsorge**

_This appendix provides additional results to the main paper._ 26
**Table A1: Country Coverage**

|_Adva_|_nced_|_Deve_|_loping_|
|---|---|---|---|
|**Country**|**Period**|**Country**|**Period**|
|Australia|1980:1--2014:1|Argentina|1993:1--2014:1|
|Belgium|1991:1--2014:1|Bulgaria|1999:1--2014:1|
|Canada|1980:1--2014:1|Brazil|1995:1--2014:1|
|Germany|1991:1--2014:1|Chile|1989:1--2014:1|
|Denmark|1999:1--2014:1|Colombia|2000:1--2014:1|
|Spain|1995:1--2014:1|Czech Republic|1999:1--2014:1|
|Finland|1998:1--2014:1|Croatia|2000:1--2014:1|
|France|1980:1--2014:1|Hungary|1995:1--2014:1|
|United Kingdom|1980:1--2014:1|Israel|1999:1--2014:1|
|Iceland|1997:1--2014:1|Mexico|1991:1--2014:1|
|Italy|1999:1--2014:1|Poland|1999:1--2014:1|
|Lithuania|1995:1--2014:1|Romania|1998:1--2014:1|
|Netherlands|1988:1--2014:1|Slovak Republic|1999:1--2014:1|
|Norway|1996:1--2014:1|South Africa|1993:1--2014:1|
|Puerto Rico|1980:1--2014:1|Turkey|1998:1--2014:1|
|Slovenia|1995:1--2014:1|||
|Sweden|1993:1--2014:1|||
|<br>United States|<br>1980:1--2014:1|||

_Note:_ The table shows the list of countries in the sample. Coverage corresponds to maximum temporal coverage for each country in the baseline specification of the IPVAR model. The coverage differs for specifications used in the robustness exercises.

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**<u>Table A2: Data Sources</u>**

|**Variable**|**Definition**|**Frequency**|**Source**|
|---|---|---|---|
|Output|Real gross domestic product (GDP)|Quarterly|Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013), OECD, Haver Analytics|
|Private consumption|Real personal consumption expenditure|Quarterly|Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013), OECD, Haver Analytics|
|Private investment|Real private gross fixed capital formation|Quarterly||
|Government consumption|Real government consumption expenditure<sup>a</sup>|Quarterly|Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013), OECD, Haver Analytics|
|Government investment|Real government gross fixed capital formation<sup>a</sup>|Quarterly|OECD, Haver Analytics, Eurostat|
|Real effective exchange rate|Real effective exchange rate<sup>b</sup>|Quarterly|Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013), BIS|
|Current account|Current account as percent of GDP|Quarterly|Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013), WEO|
|Government debt|General government debt as percent of GDP|Annual|WEO|
|Fiscal balance|Overall fiscal balance as percent of GDP|Annual|WEO|
|Government consumption-to-GDP ratio|Government consumption as percent of GDP|Annual|WDI|
|Government investment-to-GDP ratio|Government investment as percent of GDP|Annual|WDI|
|Interest rate|Short term nominal interest rate|Quarterly|Ilzetzki,Mendoza,and Vegh(2013)|

_Note:_ The main source for the quarterly series is Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013). This database which ends around 2008 is extended by splicing from different sources as mentioned in the table.

a This refers to general government for most countries while for a few countries central government is taken. See Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013). b The narrow index wherever available is taken while the remainder uses the broad index. Details are available upon request.

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# **Figure A1: Distribution of Fiscal Position**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 25<br>20<br>15<br>10<br>5<br>0<br>0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130<br>Debt-GDP Ratio<br>Frequency (%)<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graph shows the distribution of fiscal position, taken to be the annual government debt-to-GDP ratio, from the sample of advanced and developing economies during the period 1980-2014.

**Table A3: Distribution of Fiscal Position**

|**Percentile**|5|10|15|20|25|30|35|40|45|50|55|60|65|70|75|80|85|90|95|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|**Debt-GDP Ratio**|12.4|17.3|24.8|28.7|32.2|35.9|38.5|40.7|42.9|45.1|47.9|51.4|56.1|60.1|65.5|71.3|80.5|92.4|107.4|

_Note:_ The table shows the percentile values of fiscal position, taken to be annual government debt-to-GDP ratio, from the sample of advanced and developing economies during the period 1980-2014.

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# **Figure A2: Unconditional Multipliers**

<!-- Start of picture text --> A. Advanced Economies B. Developing Economies<br>0.6 0.6<br>0.4 0.4<br>0.2 0.2<br>0.0 0.0<br>-0.2 -0.2<br>-0.4 -0.4<br>-0.6 -0.6<br>-0.8 -0.8<br>-1.0 -1.0<br>Impact 1 year 2 years Long run Impact 1 year 2 years Long run<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graph shows the unconditional fiscal multipliers for select horizons. Panel A uses a sample of advanced economies only while Panel B uses only developing economies. These are based on estimates from the SVAR model of Ilzetzki, Mendoza, and Vegh (2013) that features with no interaction terms. Bars represent the median, and error bands are the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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# **Figure A3: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers by Country Groups Advanced Economies**

<!-- Start of picture text --> A. On Impact B. Long Run<br>2.0 3.0<br>2.0<br>1.0 1.0<br>0.0<br>-1.0<br>0.0<br>-2.0<br>-3.0<br>-1.0 -4.0<br>-5.0<br>-2.0 -6.0<br>12 26 35 41 47 53 60 71 90 116 12 26 35 41 47 53 60 71 90 116<br>Developing Economies<br>C. On Impact D. Long Run<br>0.4 2.0<br>1.5<br>0.3 1.0<br>0.5<br>0.2 0.0<br>-0.5<br>0.1 -1.0<br>-1.5<br>0.0 -2.0<br>-2.5<br>-0.1 -3.0<br>12 15 20 27 29 32 35 37 38 40 42 43 45 47 53 60 66 72 81 12 15 20 27 29 32 35 37 38 40 42 43 45 47 53 60 66 72 81<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graphs show the conditional fiscal multipliers for different levels of fiscal position at select horizons. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model, where model coefficients are conditioned only on fiscal position. The top (bottom) panel is based a sample of only advanced (developing) economies. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is the measure of fiscal position and the values shown on the x-axis correspond to the 5<sup>th</sup> to 95<sup>th</sup> percentiles from each sample. Fiscal position is strong (weak) when government debt is low (high). Solid lines represent the median, and dotted bands are the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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**Figure A4: Conditional Impulse Responses – Alternative Cut-offs**

<!-- Start of picture text -->
1.20 A. Government Consumption 0.10 B. GDP<br>1.00<br>0.05<br>0.80<br>0.60 0.00<br>0.40<br>-0.05<br>0.20<br>-0.10<br>0.00<br>-0.20 -0.15<br>1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20<br>Weak fiscal position Strong fiscal position<br><!-- End of picture text -->

_Note:_ The graphs show the conditional impulse responses (percentage points) for the strong (blue) and the weak (red) fiscal positions. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model, where model coefficients are conditioned only on fiscal position. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is the measure of fiscal position. The strong fiscal position corresponds to the 25<sup>th</sup> percentile of debt-to-GDP ratio from the sample, while the weak fiscal position corresponds to the 75<sup>th</sup> percentile. Solid lines represent the median, and dotted bands are the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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# **Figure A5: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers during Expansions**

<!-- Start of picture text --> A. On Impact B. 1 Year<br>0.3 0.6<br>0.2 0.4<br>0.1 0.2<br>0.0 0.0<br>-0.1 -0.2<br>-0.2 -0.4<br>-0.3 -0.6<br>12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4 12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4<br>C. 2 Years D. Long Run<br>1.2 3.0<br>0.8 2.0<br>1.0<br>0.4<br>0.0<br>0.0<br>-1.0<br>-0.4<br>-2.0<br>-0.8 -3.0<br>-1.2 -4.0<br>12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4 12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graphs show the conditional fiscal multipliers during expansions for different levels of fiscal position at select horizons. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model, where model coefficients are jointly conditioned on fiscal position and the phase of the business cycle. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is the measure of fiscal position and the values shown on the x-axis correspond to the 5<sup>th</sup> to 95<sup>th</sup> percentiles from the sample. Expansions are determined by the Harding-Pagan (2002) business cycle dating algorithm. Fiscal position is strong (weak) when government debt is low (high). Solid lines represent the median, and dotted bands are the 16-84 percent confidence bands 33
# **Figure A6: Transmission Channels – Alternative Cut-offs**

<!-- Start of picture text --> 0.10 A. Private Consumption 0.30 B. Private Investment<br>0.20<br>0.05<br>0.10<br>0.00<br>0.00<br>-0.10<br>-0.05<br>-0.20<br>-0.10<br>-0.30<br>-0.15 -0.40<br>1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20<br>Weak fiscal position Strong fiscal position<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graphs show the conditional impulse responses (percentage points) of private consumption and private investment due to a positive shock to government consumption for the strong (blue) and the weak (red) fiscal positions. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model, where model coefficients are conditioned only on fiscal position. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is the measure of fiscal position. The strong fiscal position corresponds to the 25<sup>th</sup> percentile of debt-to-GDP ratio from the sample, while the weak fiscal position corresponds to the 75<sup>th</sup> percentile. Solid lines represent the median, and dotted bands are the 1684 percent confidence bands.

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# **Figure A7: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers with Private Consumption**

<!-- Start of picture text --> A. On Impact B. 1 Year<br>0.3 0.6<br>0.2<br>0.5<br>0.2<br>0.4<br>0.1<br>0.1 0.3<br>0.0<br>0.2<br>-0.1<br>0.1<br>-0.1<br>-0.2 0.0<br>12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4 12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4<br>C. 2 Years D. Long Run<br>1.0 1.5<br>0.8 1.0<br>0.6 0.5<br>0.4 0.0<br>0.2 -0.5<br>0.0 -1.0<br>-0.2 -1.5<br>-0.4 -2.0<br>12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4 12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graphs show the conditional fiscal multipliers for different levels of fiscal position at select horizons. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model that includes private consumption. The model coefficients are conditioned only on fiscal position. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is the measure of fiscal position and the values shown on the x-axis correspond to the 5<sup>th</sup> to 95<sup>th</sup> percentiles from the sample. Fiscal position is strong (weak) when government debt is low (high). Solid lines represent the median, and dotted bands are the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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# **Figure A8: Fiscal Position-Dependent Multipliers with Private Investment**

<!-- Start of picture text --> A. On Impact B. 1 Year<br>0.3 0.8<br>0.6<br>0.2<br>0.4<br>0.1<br>0.2<br>0.0<br>0.0<br>-0.1<br>-0.2<br>-0.2 -0.4<br>12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4 12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4<br>C. 2 Years D. Long Run<br>1.0 2.0<br>1.0<br>0.5<br>0.0<br>0.0 -1.0<br>-0.5 -2.0<br>-3.0<br>-1.0<br>-4.0<br>-1.5 -5.0<br>12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4 12.4 24.8 32.2 38.5 42.9 47.9 56.1 65.5 80.5 107.4<br><!-- End of picture text --> _Note:_ The graphs show the conditional fiscal multipliers for different levels of fiscal position at select horizons. These are based on estimates from the IPVAR model that includes private investment. The model coefficients are conditioned only on fiscal position. Government debt as a percentage of GDP is the measure of fiscal position and the values shown on the x-axis correspond to the 5<sup>th</sup> to 95<sup>th</sup> percentiles from the sample. Fiscal position is strong (weak) when government debt is low (high). Solid lines represent the median, and dotted bands are the 16-84 percent confidence bands.

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<!-- Start of picture text --> BS O56. oE << Pe<br>ea a 6 ag 43<br>Horizon Debt/GOP<br><!-- End of picture text --> <!-- Start of picture text --> a : : — Ped<br>eas a 66% ag 43<br>Horizon Debi/GOP<br><!-- End of picture text -->