NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

Trigger Points and Budget Cuts: Explaining the Effects of Fiscal Austerity

Giuseppe Bertola, Allan Drazen

NBER Working Paper No. 3844*
Issued in September 1991
NBER Program(s):   EFG

We propose and solve an optimizing model which explains counterintuitive effects of fiscal policy in terms of expectations. If government spending follows an upward-trending stochastic process which the public believes may fall sharply when it reaches specific "target points," then optimizing consumption behavior and simple budget constraint arithmetic imply a nonlinear relationship between private consumption and government spending. This theoretical relation is consistent with the experience of several countries.

*Published: American Economic Review, vol. 83, no. 9, pp. 11-26 March 1993

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