Davide Furceri

Ksenia Koloskova

Gustavo Adler

Mr.Romain A Duval

Marcos Poplawski-Ribeiro

Sinem Kiliç Çelik

Productivity growth—the key driver of living standards—fell sharply following the global financial crisis and has remained sluggish since, adding to a slowdown already in train before. Building on new research, this note finds that the productivity slowdown reflects both crisis legacies and structural headwinds. In advanced economies, the global financial crisis has led to “productivity hysteresis”—persistent productivity losses from a seemingly temporary shock. Behind this are balance sheet vulnerabilities, protracted weak demand and elevated uncertainty, which jointly triggered an adverse feedback loop of weak investment, weak productivity and bleak income prospects. Structural headwinds—already blowing before the crisis—include a waning ICT boom and slowing technology diffusion, partly reflecting an aging workforce, slowing global trade and weaker human capital accumulation. Reviving productivity growth requires addressing remaining crisis legacies in the short run while pressing ahead with structural reforms to tackle longer-term headwinds.

Global Productivity

Gone with the Headwinds

Mr.Salvatore Dell'Erba

Mr.Marcos Poplawski-Ribeiro

The paper examines the consequences of fiscal consolidation in times of persistently low growth and high unemployment by estimating medium-term fiscal multipliers during protracted recessions (PR) in a sample of 17 OECD countries. Based on Jorda’s (2005) local projection methodology, we find that cumulative fiscal multipliers related to output, employment and unemployment at five-year horizons are significantly above one during PR episodes. These results suggest that medium-term fiscal consolidation plans to reduce public debt burdens should proceed gradually if economic activity remains below trend for a prolonged period.

Medium-Term Fiscal Multipliers during Protracted Recessions

Ksenia Koloskova

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