When is the government spending multiplier large? / Lawrence Christiano, Martin Eichenbaum, Sergio Rebelo.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Christiano, Lawrence.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Eichenbaum, Martin.

Rebelo, Sergio.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w15394.

NBER working paper series no. w15394

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2009.

Summary:

We argue that the government-spending multiplier can be much larger than one when the zero lower bound on the nominal interest rate binds. The larger is the fraction of government spending that occurs while the nominal interest rate is zero, the larger is the value of the multiplier. After providing intuition for these results, we investigate the size of the multiplier in a dynamic, stochastic, general equilibrium model. In this model the multiplier effect is substantially larger than one when the zero bound binds. Our model is consistent with the behavior of key macro aggregates during the recent financial crisis.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2009.