Of fairies and governments: An ABM evaluation of the expansionary austerity hypothesis

Abstract

This paper draws on a debate between Robert Skidelsky and Paul Krugman on the expansionary austerity hypothesis as a motivation to build a demand-driven agent-based model. The model features contagion across firms to explore whether fiscal consolidations may become expansionary due to a positive effect on investors’ expectations, which could be the result of a dominant public discourse on the need for austerity. Simulations suggest that while a wave of optimism affecting a small proportion of firms may lead to short-run positive output effects in the economy by raising investment demand, these effects are not sufficient to neutralize the negative macroeconomic impacts of cutting government spending. These findings are in keeping with the scantiness (or absence) of empirical evidence in favor of the expansionary fiscal contraction hypothesis.