We show that the risk-shock business cycle model of Fernández-Villaverde et al. (2011) must be recalibrated because it underpredicts the targeted business cycle moments by a factor of three once a time aggregation error is corrected. Recalibrating the corrected model for the benchmark case of Argentina, the peak response and the contribution of interest rate risk shocks to business cycle volatility increase. However, the recalibrated model does worse in capturing the business cycle properties of net exports once an additional error in the computation of net exports is corrected. (JEL E13, E20, E32, E43, F32, F43, O11)

We investigate empirically how fiscal shocks—unanticipated and exogenous changes of government consumption growth—affect the sovereign default premium. For this purpose, we assemble a new data set for 38 emerging and developed economies. It contains approximately 3,000 observations for the sovereign default premium and three alternative measures of fiscal shocks. We condition our estimates on whether shocks are positive or negative and initial conditions in terms of fiscal stress. An increase of government consumption barely affects the default premium. A reduction raises the premium if fiscal stress is severe but decreases it if initial conditions are benign.

We show how a heterogeneous agent New Keynesian (HANK) model with incomplete markets and portfolio choice can be estimated in state space using a Bayesian approach. To render estimation feasible, the structure of the economy can be exploited and the dimensionality of the model automatically reduced based on the Bayesian priors. We apply this approach to analyze how much inequality matters for the business cycle and vice versa. Even when the model is estimated on aggregate data alone and with a set of shocks and frictions designed to match aggregate data, it broadly reproduces observed US inequality dynamics. (JEL D31, D52, E12, E32, E52, E62)

Abstract We exploit Germany’s temporary three-percentage-point value-added tax (VAT) cut in the second half of 2020 to study the spending response to unconventional fiscal policy. We use survey and scanner data on household consumption expenditures and their perceived pass-through of the tax change into prices, and a HANK model to quantify the effects of this VAT policy. The survey and scanner data show that the temporary VAT reduction led to a relative increase in durable and, to a lesser extent, semi-durable spending for individuals with high perceived pass-through. According to the HANK model, the VAT policy increased total aggregate consumption spending by 4.4% on impact.

In economies with fixed exchange rates, the adjustment to government-spending shocks is asymmetric. Expansionary shocks are absorbed by the real exchange rate, contractionary shocks by output. This result emerges in a small open-economy model with downward nominal wage rigidity and is supported by new empirical evidence based on panel data from different exchange-rate regimes. The exchange-rate regime, economic slack, inflation, and how spending is financed all matter for the fiscal transmission mechanism in the way predicted by the model. Estimates that fail to distinguish between the effects of positive and negative shocks are subject to a “depreciation bias.”