Mafia and Public Spending: Evidence on the Fiscal Multiplier from a Quasi-Experiment

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Acconcia, Antonio; Corsetti, Giancarlo; Simonelli, Saverio
• 署名单位: University of Naples Federico II; University of Cambridge; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.104.7.2185
• 发表日期: 2014
• 页码: 2185-2209
• 关键词: stimulus; shocks; POLICY; taxes

摘要

A law issued to combat political corruption and Mafia infiltration of city councils in Italy has resulted in episodes of large, unanticipated, temporary contractions in local public spending. Using these episodes as instruments, we estimate the output multiplier of spending cuts at provincial level-controlling for national monetary and fiscal policy, and holding the tax burden of local residents constant-to be 1.5. Assuming that lagged spending is exogenous to current output brings the estimate of the overall multiplier up to 1.9. These results suggest that local spending adjustment may be quite consequential for local activity.