Reorienting fiscal policy after the great recession

Arbeitspapier

The paper evaluates the fiscal policy initiatives during the Great Recession in the United States. It argues that, although the nonconventional fiscal policies targeted at the financial sector dwarfed the conventional countercyclical stabilization efforts directed toward the real sector, the relatively disappointing impact on employment was a result of misdirected funding priorities combined with an exclusive and ill-advised focus on the output gap rather than on the employment gap. The paper argues further that conventional pump-priming policies are incapable of closing this employment gap. In order to tackle the formidable labor market challenges observed in the United States over the last few decades, policy could benefit from a fundamental reorientation away from trickle-down Keynesianism and toward what is termed here a bottom-up approach to fiscal policy. This approach also reconsiders the nature of countercyclical government stabilizers.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: Working Paper ; No. 719

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity ; Aggregate Factor Income Distribution ; Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination ; Fiscal Policy ; Studies of Particular Policy Episodes ; Particular Labor Markets: Public Policy
• Subject: Fiscal Policy ; American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 ; Trickle-Down Keynesianism ; Countercyclical Employment Policy

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Tcherneva, Pavlina R.
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Levy Economics Institute of Bard College
• (where): Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
• (when): 2012

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/79472
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET