This paper empirically investigates whether the theoretical conditions for government expenditure expansions to be effective, hold for the data. We ask whether the necessary conditions for fiscal effectiveness are relevant on average, and in special circumstances that capture features of the recent crisis. Fiscal policy can be an effective countercyclical tool if monetary policy accommodates the fiscal expansion, if expectations about future output growth and inflation are constant, and if structural relationships are invariant to the policy change. Recent expansions are unlikely to produce large output multipliers or have important debt or inflation effects. Credible deficit and debt reduction schemes can produce sizeable output multipliers.
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