Publications

SSRN

October 2020
Case

Fiscal Responses to COVID-19

By: Rawi Abdelal, Rafael Di Tella, Vincent Pons and Galit Goldstein

For the first half of 2020, the COVID-19 crisis seemed on the verge of spiraling out of control. The business world struggled to figure out what COVID meant for macroeconomics. Extended restrictions limiting human interaction meant an end to normal economic production,... View Details

Keywords: Fiscal Policy; COVID; COVID-19; Economic Analysis; Economic Downturn; Economic Conditions; Economic Governance; Economic Systems; Economy; Health Pandemics; Finance; Policy; United States; Germany; France; European Union

Educators

11 Apr 2013
News

Current fiscal policy harms U.S. competitiveness

Article

An Exploration of Optimal Stabilization Policy

By: N. Gregory Mankiw and Matthew C. Weinzierl

This paper examines the optimal response of monetary and fiscal policy to a decline in aggregate demand. The theoretical framework is a two-period general equilibrium model in which prices are sticky in the short-run and flexible in the long-run. Policy is evaluated by... View Details

Keywords: Fiscal Policy; Monetary Policy; Economic Models; Aggregate Demand; Demand and Consumers; Money; Mathematical Methods; Taxation; Spending; Policy; Welfare; Household; Economic Slowdown and Stagnation

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2019
Working Paper

Fiscal Rules and Sovereign Default

By: Laura Alfaro and Fabio Kanczuk

Recurrent concerns over debt sustainability in emerging and developed nations have prompted renewed debate on the role of fiscal rules. Their optimality, however, remains unclear. We provide a quantitative analysis of fiscal rules in a standard model of sovereign debt... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Debt; Hyperbolic Discounting; Fiscal Rules; Sovereign Finance

December 2004 (Revised December 2004)
Background Note

Fiscal Policy and the Case of Expansionary Fiscal Contraction in Ireland in the 1980s

By: Huw Pill

Provides a brief introduction to fiscal policy, including the fiscal multiplier. Uses Ireland's experience in the 1980s to explore the possibility that fiscal contractions--tax rises and expenditure costs--can stimulate economic growth (contrary to conventional... View Details

Keywords: Sovereign Finance; Policy; Macroeconomics; Economic Growth; Republic of Ireland

Educators

December 1982 (Revised February 1989)
Background Note

Note on Fiscal Policy--1937-61

Describes the evolution of U.S. fiscal policy from its theoretical conception with Keynes in the 1930s to its implementation in the tax cut of 1964. Focuses on the political and ideological obstacles to the use of countercyclical policy as well as the success of the... View Details

Keywords: Policy; Macroeconomics; United States

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24 Apr 2014
News

A reformed fiscal policy is vital to renewing US productivity

marketplace while its people enjoy a high and rising standard of living. Vietor, with HBS collaborator Matthew Weinzierl, associate professor of Business Administration, and Marvin Bower Fellow, has found that US fiscal View Details

January 1997 (Revised March 1998)
Background Note

Fiscal Policy: Managing Aggregate Demand

Introduces the concept of fiscal policy. View Details

Keywords: Policy; Macroeconomics

Educators

16 May 2007
Working Paper Summaries

On The General Relativity of Fiscal Language

Keywords: by Jerry Green & Laurence J. Kotlikoff

2021
Other Unpublished Work

Fiscal Policy at a Time of Polarization: Addressing Latin America’s Tough Dilemmas

By: Laura Alfaro, Guillermo Calvo, Augusto de la Torre, José de Gregorio, Roque Fernandez, Pablo Guidotti, Paulo Leme, Enrique Mendoza, Ernesto Talvi, Liliana Rojas-Suarez and Andrés Velasco

01 Jan 2012
News

Gingrich's frightening fiscal fantasies

March 2000 (Revised February 2001)
Supplement

Supplement for "The Reagan Plan": Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Beginning of Reagan's Presidency

By: Julio J. Rotemberg

Supplements The Reagan Plan. View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Government Administration

January 2021
Article

State and Local Government Employment in the COVID-19 Crisis

By: Daniel Green and Erik Loualiche

Local governments are facing large losses in revenues and increased expenditures because of the COVID-19 crisis. We document a causal relationship between fiscal pressures induced by COVID-19 and the layoffs of state and local government workers. States that depend... View Details

Keywords: Local Government; Municipal Finance; Public Finance; Fiscal Capacity; Fiscal Policy; Governance; Local Range; Health Pandemics; Employment; Finance; Policy; Public Sector

18 Sep 2006
Research & Ideas

When Words Get in the Way: The Failure of Fiscal Language

Does the federal deficit matter? Oceans of ink track and report this monster tally (current estimates for fiscal year 2006 stand at $260 billion), yet Jerry Green of Harvard Business School and Laurence J. Kotlikoff of Boston University... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna

Mar 2012
Article

Macroeconomic Policy and U.S. Competitiveness

The United States is on a glide path to fiscal disaster, with experts projecting that the federal government will take in far less money than it spends--indefinitely. Our current fiscal View Details

2020
Working Paper

HBS COVID-19 Global Policy Tracker

By: Alberto Cavallo and Tannya Cai

The HBS COVID-19 Global Policy Tracker is an initiative by the Business, Government and the International Economy (BGIE) unit at Harvard Business School (HBS) to collect and standardize economic policies implemented as a response to the coronavirus pandemic around the... View Details

Keywords: COVID-19; Economics; Policy; Health Pandemics; Government and Politics; Global Range

March 2012
Article

Macroeconomic Policy and U.S. Competitiveness

By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Matthew Weinzierl

The United States is on a glide path to fiscal disaster, with experts projecting that the federal government will take in far less money than it spends-indefinitely. Our current fiscal policy is eroding competitiveness in several ways, and business conditions in the... View Details

Keywords: Macroeconomics; Government and Politics; Financial Crisis; Policy; Competition; Public Administration Industry; United States