Transfer Payments and the Macroeconomy: The Effects of Social Security Benefit Increases, 1952-1991

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Romer, Christina D.; Romer, David H.
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 1945-7707
• DOI: 10.1257/mac.20140348
• 发表日期: 2016
• 页码: 1-42
• 关键词: government spending shocks; fiscal stimulus; multiplier; output; taxes

摘要

This paper uses Social Security benefit increases from 1952 to 1991 to investigate the macroeconomic effects of changes in transfers. It finds a large, immediate, and significant positive response of consumption to permanent benefit increases. The response declines after about five months, and does not appear to spread to industrial production or employment. The effects of transfers are faster, but much less persistent and much smaller overall, than those of tax changes. Finally, monetary policy responds strongly to benefit increases but not to tax changes. This may account for the failure of the effects of transfers to persist or spread.