Previous VAR investigations on the effects of fiscal policy in the US, like Fatás and
Mihov [2001] and Mountford and Uhlig [2002], have often found a negative effect of government
spending on prices or inflation.42 These results are based on orthogonalizations
with real governments spending ordered before prices, thus implicitly assuming a zero
elasticity of real government spending to the price level. Indeed, when I also assume a
zero elasticity (panel C of Table 17), as expected the inflation response at 1 year falls
algebraically everywhere. However, the elasticity makes essentially no difference at 3
years.
Like in the case of a spending shock, in S1 at 3 years the response of inflation to a
tax cut (panel D) is significantly positive only in the US and UK, the only two countries
with a non-zero inflation response to a government spending shock. In S2 at 3 years the
inflation response is smaller than in S1 in the US and UK and larger in Germany, exactly
like in the case of a government spending shock; but the pattern is different in the other
two countries. Again, the same conclusions largely apply to the case of the CPI inflation
rate (panel E).