The widespread notion that most unanticipated fiscal policy decisions at the quarterly
frequency are in reality only rearrangements of cash or deliveries over time is probably
based on an incorrect reading of some recent descriptive analysis of countercyclical
fiscal policies in the US, like Bartlett [1993] and Romer and Romer [1994]. These studies
argue convincingly that postwar US administrations have used four types of policies
whenever they perceived (usually too late, as it turns out) a need for countercyclical fiscal
measures: accelerating disbursements on government acquisition programs, extending unemployment
benefits, extending some temporary tax credit or exemption programs, and
starting or expanding public work programs