Category Archives: Stimulus Impact
The Impact of the Pandemic and Lasting Lessons for Teaching Economics
Yesterday, I gave a keynote talk at the tenth American Economic Association Conference on Teaching and Research in Economic Education (CTREE). I have been teaching economics for 53 years. I love teaching economics. I love researching economics. And I love … Continue reading
Make Section 2201 of the CARES Act Work in Practice
Section 2201 of the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act authorizes direct payments, “Recovery Rebates,” to individual households and families. The Section is called the “2020 Recovery Rebates for Individuals” and is estimated to total $300 billion–the sum … Continue reading
Posted in Budget & Debt, Stimulus Impact
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Stiglitz, Summers, Secular Stagnation, and the Supply Side
Joe Stiglitz recently published an attack, “The Myth of Secular Stagnation,” on Larry Summers’ hypothesis of secular stagnation, a revival of a term used by Alvin Hansen decades ago. Larry first presented his secular stagnation hypothesis at a conference jointly … Continue reading
Posted in Regulatory Policy, Slow Recovery, Stimulus Impact
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Novel Research on Elections, Policymaking, Economic Uncertainty
The Becker Friedman Institute of the University of Chicago and the Hoover Institution of Stanford University teamed up yesterday to put on a Conference on Elections, Policymaking, and Economic Uncertainty. The conference was held at the Hoover Institution Offices in … Continue reading
Why It’s Hard to Make the Unpopular Stimulus Look Good
Some columnists have been using the 5-year anniversary of the 2009 discretionary fiscal stimulus package to claim that it worked to jump-start the economy. It’s a tough case to make. The very word “stimulus” has become a dirty word because … Continue reading
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Another Anniversary: The Macro Alliteration Wars
Before we get too far away from the 5th anniversary of the 2009 stimulus signed into law on February 17, 2009 (or the 6th anniversary of the 2008 stimulus signed into law on February 13, 2008 ), it’s fun to … Continue reading
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Next Time Remember the Lessons from Stimulus Packages
It’s the five-year anniversary of the 2009 stimulus package. I’ve done a slew of empirical research on the stimulus in those years from predicting in advance that its impact would be small to estimating afterwards that its impact was small. … Continue reading
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Valuable Dissent to the Transportation Research Board’s Special Stimulus Report
This past week the Transportation Research Board released its Special Report from the “Committee on Economic and Employment Benefits of Transportation Investments in Response to Economic Downturns.” The report evaluated the 2009 stimulus and in particular the part of the stimulus … Continue reading
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New Model Validation of Stimulus Impacts
A paper just published in the American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics sheds additional light on the Keynesian multiplier debate, which has surged since the 2009 stimulus package—ARRA—was enacted. In January 2009 Christina Romer and Jared Bernstein released a widely-cited paper showing … Continue reading
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More Debates about the Stimulus Debate
In a blog post yesterday Paul Krugman repeats a claim made by Christina Romer (in footnote 18 of a speech at Hamilton College last November) which he says answers “in devastating fashion” the empirical paper by John Cogan and me which shows that … Continue reading
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Economics One 