Category Archives: multipliers

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act at 5

It was five years ago that the ARRA was passed…and thence arose a fierce storm of criticisms, ranging from the idea that the stimulus would occur after the recovery was complete (e.g., Ed Lazear), to the Treasury view (government spending would crowd out completely private spending, e.g., Eugene Fama). Time to take stock. The Council of Economic Advisers has released its last report on the ARRA, and other stimulus measures, discussed in a blogpost by CEA Chair Jason Furman.

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Friday Fiscal Lookback

I’m writing a piece on recent thinking on fiscal policy efficacy, and in looking back at the debate over the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, I read this choice comment from an Econbrowser reader in September 2009:

After today’s unemployment report, and in light of your past running blog fight with Posner, I’m thinking that Q3 GDP is going to come in much, much less than you would have predicted based on stimulus spending. You won’t take this as a repudiation of your multiplier theories, but I will.

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Just how helpful is inflation?

According to one widely adopted class of economic models, raising the inflation rate would be one of the most helpful things that could happen to economies in the situation currently faced by Japan and the U.S. Here I describe some new research relevant for testing that theory.

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