No disponible en español
Julia Jabłońska
- 8 November 2024
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 2998Details
- Abstract
- During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments in the euro area sharply increased spending while the European Central Bank eased financing conditions. We use this episode to assess how such a concerted monetary-fiscal stimulus redistributes welfare between various age cohorts. Our assessment involves not only the income side of household balance sheets (mainly direct effects of transfers) but also the more obscure financing side that, to a substantial degree, occurred via indirect effects (with a prominent role of the inflation tax). Using a quantitative life-cycle model, and assuming that the deficit was partly unfunded by future taxes, we document that young households benefited from the stimulus, while middle-aged and older agents mainly paid the bill. Crucially, most welfare redistribution was due to indirect effects related to macroeconomic adjustment that resulted from the stimulus. As a consequence, even though all age cohorts received significant transfers, the welfare of some actually decreased.
- JEL Code
- E31 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles→Price Level, Inflation, Deflation
E51 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Money Supply, Credit, Money Multipliers
E52 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit→Monetary Policy
H5 : Public Economics→National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
J11 : Labor and Demographic Economics→Demographic Economics→Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts