New York Times rapporterar om ett stort finanspolitiskt stimulanspaket som president Bush och Kongressen nu tycks eniga om, omfattande 150 miljarder dollar. Jag är skeptisk till dessa åtgärder, påverkad som jag är av makarna Romers artikel ”What Ends Recessions?”. Abstract:

We analyze the contributions of monetary and fiscal policy to postwar economic recoveries. We find that the Federal Reserve typically responds to downturns with prompt and large reductions in interest rates. Discretionary fiscal policy, in contrast, rarely reacts before the trough in economic activity, and even then the responses are usually small. Simulations using multipliers from both simple regressions and a large macroeconomic model show that the interest rate falls account for nearly all of the above average growth that occurs early in recoveries.

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