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The Review of Economics and Statistics Vol. 104 No. 6 2022

Trade Flows and Fiscal Multipliers

Matteo Cacciatore1; Nora Traum2

1 HEC Montreal, Bank of Canada, and NBER · 2 HEC Montréal

open access

Abstract

We present novel insights on the role of international trade following unanticipated fiscal changes in a flexible exchange rate environment. We show analytically that fiscal multipliers can be larger in economies more open to trade, even when fiscal expansions imply trade deficits. Three factors determine how trade linkages matter: the relative import share of public and private goods, the financing of government debt, and the currency invoicing of exports. A Bayesian prior-predictive analysis shows that a quantitative model bears the same predictions. Conditioning on Canadian and U.S. data, we find support for larger multipliers relative to a counterfactually closed economy.

DOI
10.1162/rest_a_00985
Volume
104
Issue
6
Pages
1206-1223
Language
en
Sources
openalex crossref

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