We take to the data an RBC model with two salient features. First, we allow government consumption to directly affect the marginal utility of consumption. Second, we allow public capital to affect the productivity of private factors. On the one hand, private and government consumption are estimated to be substitute goods. As a consequence, the estimated response of private consumption to a government consumption shock is negative, as in models with separable government consumption, but such response is much stronger. Further, substitutability makes labor supply to react less, so the estimated output multiplier is lower than in models with separabilities, peaking-on impact-at 0.39. On the other hand, non-defense public investment enhances mildly or negligibly, depending on the specification, the productivity of private factors. In those specifications where non-defense public investment is found to be productive, a non-defense investment shock generates the following estimated responses (after several quarters): a positive reaction for private consumption, Tobin's q, private investment and real wages. Unlike models with unproductive government investment, the estimated output multiplier builds up over time, starting well below one on impact, then reaching 0.93 after three years and 1.44 after six.

This letter highlights the role of macroeconomic and financial uncertainty in predicting US recessions. In-sample forecasts using probit models indicate that the two variables are the best predictors of recessions at short horizons. Macroeconomic uncertainty has the highest predictive power up to 7 months ahead and becomes the second best predictor -after the yield curve slope -at longer horizons. Using data up to end-2018, out-of-sample forecasts show that uncertainty has significantly contributed to lower the probability of a recession in 2019, which indeed did not occur.

We study a largely neglected channel through which government expenditures can boost private consumption. We set up a dynamic model in which households are subject to health shocks. We take the model to the data and estimate a negative impact of public health care on household consumption dispersion, wealth and saving. According to our model, this result is explained by a change in the level of precautionary saving, with public health care acting as a form of consumption insurance. We compute the implied consumption multipliers by simulating the typical government consumption shock within a calibrated general equilibrium version of our model, with flexible prices. The impact consumption multiplier generated by the decrease in the level of precautionary saving is positive and sizable. When we include the effect of taxation, the sign of the impact multiplier depends on a few features of the model, such as the persistence of the health shocks. The long-run cumulative multiplier is negative across all calibrations.

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