The paper subjects seven structural DSGE models, all used heavily by policymaking institutions, to discretionary fiscal stimulus shocks using seven different fiscal instruments, and compares the results to those of two prominent academic DSGE models. There is considerable agreement across models on both the absolute and relative sizes of different types of fiscal multipliers. The size of many multipliers is large, particularly for spending and targeted transfers. Fiscal policy is most effective if it has moderate persistence and if monetary policy is accommodative. Permanently higher spending or deficits imply significantly lower initial multipliers. (JEL E12, E13, E52, E62)

The aim of this paper is to assess the impact of financial crises on potential output. For this purpose a univariate autoregressive growth equation is estimated on an unbalanced panel of OECD countries over the period 1960–2008. Our results suggest that the occurrence of a financial crisis negatively and permanently affects potential output. In particular, financial crises are estimated to lower potential output by around 1.5–2.4% on average, with most of the impact coming from the effect on capital. The magnitude of the effect increases with the severity of the crisis. These results are robust to the use of an alternative measure of potential output, changes in the methodology and in the sample periods. The impact of financial crises is also found to vary according to structural features of the economies, such as the degree of openness, macro-economic imbalances, financial deepening and the qual-ity of governance

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This paper examines the effect of economic crises on structural unemployment using an Autoregressive Distributed Lags model and accounting for the role of institutional settings on an unbalanced panel of 30 OECD economies from 1960 to 2006. We found that downturns have, on average, a significant positive impact on the level of structural unemployment rate. The maximum impact varies with the severity of the downturn. Institutions (such as employment protection legislation, average replacement ratio and product market regulation) influence both the extent of the initial shock and the adjustment pattern in the aftermath of an economic downturn

This paper examines the impact of temporal variation in labour market institutions and other structural factors on unemployment in Europe. A system comprising a labour demand and a wage equation is estimated on pooled time-series data for the six largest EU countries for the 1980s and 1990s. The results suggest that changes in regional mismatch, trade union density and the ratio between consumer and producer prices are positively associated with structural unemployment. This result is robust to a wide variety of different specifications. No consistent role is found for other institutional factors (such as social security benefits, employment security and minimum wage). Copyright (c) Scottish Economic Society 2005.