Tópico ainda controverso e fundamental para a minização dos efeitos da crise econômica e para o período subsequente. Leitura, naturalmente, obrigatória.
As fiscal stimulus packages were hastily put
together around the world last spring, one could
not have been blamed for thinking that there
must be some broad agreement in the profession
regarding the size of the fiscal multipliers. Far from it.
In a January 2009 Wall Street Journal op-ed piece,
Robert Barro argued that peacetime fiscal multipliers are
essentially zero. At the other extreme, Christina Romer,
Chair of President Obama's Council of Economic
Advisers, used multipliers as high as 1.6 in estimating
the job gains that will be generated by the $787 billion
stimulus package approved by Congress last February.
The difference between Romer's and Barro's views of
the world amounts to a staggering 3.7 million jobs by
the end of 2010.
If anything, the uncertainty regarding the size of fiscal
multipliers in developing and emerging markets is
even higher. Data is scarcer and often of dubious quality.
A history of fiscal profligacy and spotty debt repayments
calls into question the sustainability of any fiscal
expansion. How does this financial fragility affect the
size of fiscal multipliers? Does the exchange regime
matter? What about the degree of openness? These are
all critical policy questions that remain largely unanswered.
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