This essay briefly reviews the state of knowledge about the government spending multiplier. Drawing on theoretical work, aggregate empirical estimates from the United States, as well as cross-locality estimates, I assess the likely range of multiplier values for the experiment most relevant to the stimulus package debate: a temporary, deficit-financed increase in government purchases. I conclude that the multiplier for this type of spending is probably between 0.8 and 1.5.

Do shocks to government spending raise or lower consumption and real wages? Standard VAR identification approaches show a rise in these variables, whereas the Ramey-Shapiro narrative identification approach finds a fall. I show that a key difference in the approaches is the timing. Both professional forecasts and the narrative approach shocks Granger-cause the VAR shocks, implying that the VAR shocks are missing the timing of the news. Simulations from a standard neoclassical model in which government spending is anticipated by several quarters demonstrate that VARs estimated with faulty timing can produce a rise in consumption even when it decreases in the model. Motivated by the importance of measuring anticipations, I construct two new variables that measure anticipations. The first is based on narrative evidence that is much richer than the Ramey-Shapiro military dates and covers 1939 to 2008. The second is from the Survey of Professional Forecasters, and covers the period 1969 to 2008. All news measures suggest that most components of consumption fall after a positive shock to government spending. The implied government spending multipliers range from 0.6 to 1.1.

This paper presents a theory of inventory investment by stage-of-processing, and uses it to examine the role of inventory investment in economic fluctuations. Three conclusions emerge from the estimation. First, the estimates generally satisfy the theoretical restrictions. Second, the elasticity of inventory demand with respect to output is high, indicating an important accelerator effect. Finally, the estimates suggest that shifts in the demand for inventories are an important source of economic fluctuations.

This paper explores one possible explanation for the apparent excess volatility of production relative to sales: nonconvexities in the technology facing firms. It is shown that if firms operate in a region of declining marginal costs, then small shifts in demand can cause production to jump substantially. Estimates for six production-to-stock industries as well as the automobile industry suggest that all these industries behave as if they were operating in the region of nonconvex costs. The results have important implications not only for inventory investment but also for the cyclical behavior of productivity and prices.

This paper explores one possible explanation for the apparent excess volatility of production relative to sales: nonconvexities in the technology facing firms. It is shown that if firms operate in a region of declining marginal costs, then small shifts in demand can cause production to jump substantially. Estimates for six production-to-stock industries as well as the automobile industry suggest that all these industries behave as if they were operating in the region of nonconvex costs. The results have important implications not only for inventory investment but also for the cyclical behavior of productivity and prices.

This paper presents empirical evidence against the standard dichotomy in macroeconomics that separates growth from the volatility of economic fluctuations. In a sample of 92 countries as well as a sample of OECD countries, we find that countries with higher volatility have lower growth. The addition of standard control variables strengthens the negative relationship. We also find that government spending-induced volatility is negatively associated with growth even after controlling for both time- and country-fixed effects.

Dramatic changes in the volatility of output occurred in the U.S. auto industry in the early 1980s. Namely, output volatility declined, the covariance of inventory investment and sales grew more negative, and adjustments to production schedules, which in earlier decades stemmed primarily from plants hiring and laying off workers, were more often accomplished with changes in average hours per worker after the mid-1980s. Using a linear quadratic inventory model with intensive and extensive labor adjustments, we show how all of these changes could have stemmed from one underlying factor—a decline in the persistence of motor vehicle sales.

We present evidence that the high estimated marginal propensities to consume (MPCs) from the leading household studies result in implausible macroeconomic counterfactuals. Using the 2008 tax rebate as a case study, we calibrate a standard macro model with the estimated micro MPCs to construct counterfactual macroeconomic consumption paths in the absence of a rebate. The counterfactual paths imply that consumption expenditures would have plummeted in spring and summer 2008 and mostly recovered in September 2008. We use narratives and forecasts to argue that these paths are implausible. We show that standard two-way fixed effect estimates of the micro MPCs are upward biased. When we correct for the biases, we estimate smaller micro MPCs using the CEX data than the previous literature. We show that realistic modifications of the model result in general equilibrium forces that dampen rather than amplify micro MPCs. The combination of smaller micro MPCs and dampening general equilibrium forces implies general equilibrium consumption multipliers that are below 0.2.