The academic literature on fiscal policy in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis: a Keynesian resurgence?ABSTRACT
After the 2008 global financial crisis, there was discussion about the possibility of a Keynesian resurgence. Studies on this topic showed that the mainstream view faced some changes but that they were limited. There has been growing interest in thematic multipliers and some acceptance of fiscal policy in special circumstances: recession with zero lower bound. This article presents a bibliometric study comparing the immediate post-crisis period (2009-2015) to the period in which the crisis became more distant (2016-2022). The study showed that the second period became even more distant to a Keynesian resurgence.
KEYWORDS:
Fiscal policy; new neoclassical synthesis; 2008 crisis; Keynes; bibliometric analysis
RESUMO
Logo depois da crise financeira global de 2008, houve uma discussão sobre a possibilidade de um ressurgimento keynesiano. Estudos sobre este tema mostraram que a visão mainstream passou por mudanças, mas que elas foram limitadas. Houve um crescente interesse pelo tema multiplicadores e alguma aceitação do uso da política fiscal em uma circunstância especial: recessão com taxa nominal de juros em zero. Este artigo apresenta um estudo bibliométrico comparando o período imediato pós-crise (2009-2015) com o período em que a crise se tornou mais distante (2016-2022). O estudo mostrou que o segundo período ficou ainda mais distante de um ressurgimento keynesiano.
PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Política fiscal; nova síntese neoclássica; crise de 2008; Keynes; análise bibliométrica
INTRODUCTION
In the years following the 2008 global financial crisis, there was a discussion concerning the possibility of a Keynesian resurgence, which could lead to a great change of views concerning fiscal policy. The mainstream approach to macroeconomics in the years before the 2008 crisis was the New Neoclassical Synthesis, which considered that the role of the fiscal policy was not much more than keeping the sustainability of the public debt/GDP ratio. According to this approach, the stabilization of economic activity should be a monetary policy’s task. The mainstream view considered that a correct short-term nominal interest rate set by a central bank could keep inflation stable and low and avoid an output gap (Blanchard, Ariccia & Mauro, 2010).
This Keynesian resurgence could be considered a shift in the dominant theoretic system. There is a higher probability of shift during times of crises when a dominant theoretic system loses prestige and a space for new ideas is opened (Screpanti & Zamagni, 2005).
The first great shift in the mainstream view concerning Macroeconomics was the Keynesian Revolution, which took place in the immediate years after World War II, as a consequence of the 1930s Great Depression. The Keynesian Revolution was the birth of Macroeconomics as an independent subject (Blanchard, 2000). This event caused an important shift in the design of public policies because it created a new role for the government: stabilizing the aggregate demand through fiscal and monetary policies (Colander & Landreth, 1996). According to Keynes, the market forces did not have an automatic mechanism to keep the output at the full employment level. The level of output depended on the aggregate demand and the state had an important role to manage the level of aggregate demand (Snowdon & Vane, 2005).
The “Keynesian economics” that became dominant in the immediate period after World War II was not exactly the view supported by John Maynard Keynes, who considered that the level of output could be lower than the full employment level even if the prices and wages were flexible. The “Keynesian economics” that became dominant was the neoclassical synthesis, which considered that the rigidity of prices and wages was the cause of the possibility of output level below the full employment level (Vroey, 2016). Despite the difference to Keynes’s original ideas, the neoclassical synthesis supported fiscal and monetary policies to keep the output at the full employment level. According to this approach, an adverse demand shock could reduce the output, but the system had a long-term trend to go back to the full employment output equilibrium. However, since this trend takes too long time if it relies only on market forces, due to the price and wage rigidity, fiscal and monetary policies could be necessary to restore the full employment output (Dow, 2003; Snowdon & Vane, 2005).
After two decades of dominance, this approach lost prestige during the stagflation of the developed countries in the 1970s. The monetarism and then, the new classical school, brought back the dominance of the idea that market forces could keep the economy stable and that the discretionary macroeconomic policy could be a source of instability (Snowdon & Vane, 2005).
The New Classical School introduced the concept of rational expectations, which considered that macroeconomic policies could have no efficacy because the agents could predict the effect of these policies and react (Screpanti & Zamagni, 2005). One implication of the rational expectations is the Ricardian equivalence, which considered that an increase in public spending or a tax cut could have no effect on the aggregate demand because the consumers could anticipate a future tax hike due to an expected increase of the public deficit in the future (Blanchard, 2001). Unlike the neoclassical synthesis, the new classical school considered that the prices were fully flexible (Snowdon & Vane, 2005). A further new idea introduced by the New Classical school was the general equilibrium macroeconomic models (Vroey, 2016).
A few years after the new classical school, a new school emerged: the New Keynesian school. The new Keynesians reconciled the rational expectation hypothesis of the New Classical school with the price and wage rigidity of the Neoclassical Synthesis, which happened due to market failures and which could be a cause of the output below the full employment level (Dixon, 2008). While the Neoclassical Synthesis just considered that price and wage rigidities existed, the New Keynesians looked for microeconomic explanations for the market failures that led to these rigidities (Snowdon & Vane, 2005).
The first generation of the new Keynesians did not use general equilibrium models. The second generation of the new Keynesians started using general equilibrium models and added rigidities in these models. The name these models received was Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models. The second generation of the new Keynesian school received the name of New Neoclassical Synthesis (Vroey, 2016) or New Macroeconomic Consensus (Arestis, 2009).
The basic model of the new neoclassical synthesis considered that there was a natural output level, a natural unemployment level, and a natural interest rate (Duarte, 2011). Market failures could deviate the output, the unemployment, and the interest rate of their natural levels (Fontana, 2009). The aggregate demand could have impacted on the output in the short term, but the long-term output was determined only by supply-side factors, like capital and technology (Blanchard, 2001).
The New Neoclassical Synthesis considered that stabilization policies could be necessary, but that there was no need for fiscal policy to stabilize the level of output. The monetary policy, based on the set of a short-term interest rate by the central bank, was considered enough for the stabilization of the economic activity (Blanchard, Ariccia & Mauro, 2010). Due to the preference of the New Neoclassical Synthesis for the monetary policy, its basic model showed no explicit role for the fiscal policy (Fontana, 2009). The members of this approach had a pessimist view on the use of the fiscal policy as a tool for the stabilization of the aggregate demand because they thought that due to the Ricardian equivalence, the consumers used to react to fiscal policy shocks. Besides, they trusted in the efficacy of the monetary policy, they had concern on the high public debt/GDP ratio in the developed countries and they had concern on the lack of a reliable market of public debt bonds in the developing countries. They were also worried about the time lags of the implementation of the fiscal policy and the distortion that might be caused by the political system (Blanchard, Ariccia & Mauro, 2010). The role of the fiscal policy according to the new neoclassical synthesis was keeping the sustainability of the public debt/GDP ratio (Blanchard, Ariccia & Mauro, 2010).
Although the new neoclassical synthesis doesn’t have a positive view on the use of fiscal policy as mechanism to stabilize the level of economic activity, this mainstream approach had two empirical methodologies to verify the impact of fiscal policy. One of them was the observation of the impact of a random variable, which had no relation to the cycle, like the defense spending. The other one was the structural vector autoregressive (SVAR), which used an econometric model to determine at the same time the output, the public spending, and the tax revenue (Fontana, 2009).
During the 1990s, there was a belief that macroeconomics had achieved a great level of convergence, due to the reconciliation of the general equilibrium models of the new classicals and the market failures of the new Keynesians, and that ideological divide would belong to the past (Blanchard, 2000; Woodford, 2009). The great moderation of the American economy in the period between 1985 and 2007 increased the belief that finally the correct model of macroeconomics was found (Blanchard, Ariccia & Mauro, 2010).
While the New Neoclassical Synthesis was the mainstream approach to macroeconomics, there was a dissent approach: the post-Keynesian school. This approach considered that the aggregate demand had impacted on the output not only in the short term, like the old and the New Neoclassical Synthesis believe, but also in the long-term (Lavoie, 2014). According to the post-Keynesian view, even if the hypothesis of natural level of output, unemployment, and interest rate is accepted, there is no evidence that the monetary policy is better than the fiscal policy to bring back these variables to their natural level. A rule that allowed immediate increase of the public spending could make the time lags of the fiscal policy - smaller than the time lags of the monetary policy. The post-Keynesian view also considered that the fiscal policy could have impacted on the output even in the long run, because if the firms face higher demand, they can increase their capital stock (Arestis & Sawyer, 2003).
It is important to remember that mainstream and orthodox, dissent and heterodox are not synonyms. Orthodox and heterodox are descriptions related to the way of doing science. Mainstream and dissent are descriptions related to the acceptance of a view by the elite of the profession. A mainstream view is the one which is taugh in the most prestigious universities and publishes in the most prestigious journals (Dequech, 2007). Despite the difference of meaning of these words, the New Neoclassical Synthesis is at the same time mainstream and orthodox, and the post-keynesian school is at the same time dissent and heterodox (Lavoie, 2014).
Few months after the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in September 2008, a debate emerged about the possibility of a new shift in the mainstream ideas on Macroeconomics with impact similar to the Keynesian Revolution of the 1930s and the Monetarist Counter-Revolution of the 1970s. Lavoie (2010) discussed the possibility of a Keynesian resurgence. Keynes never disappeared from the mainstream literature on Macroeconomics because the new neoclassical synthesis was the second generation of new Keynesianism. But since the new Keynesians have many similarities with the monetarists and the new classicals, a Keynesian resurgence could bring back some Keynes’s ideas abandoned by the new Keynesians and endorsed by the post-Keynesians, like the support of the use of the fiscal policy as a tool of stabilization of the economic activity.
According to Lavoie (2010), three outcomes could be feasible. The one with the highest probability was the continuity of the New Neoclassical Synthesis as a mainstream view, but with some changes proposed by members of this approach who observed some failures after the 2008 crisis. The other were extremes with lower probability: the emergence of new mainstream views or the continuity of the New Neoclassical Synthesis without changes.
There were some papers published in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis comparing the academic literature on fiscal policy before and after the crisis. These literature reviews covered the immediate period following the crisis. The conclusion reached by these papers is that the outcome Lavoie (2010) considered the one with the highest probability: the New Neoclassical Synthesis is still the mainstream view, but there were improvements.
The intention of this article is to compare, through a bibliometric study, the academic literature on fiscal policy published in the years soon after the 2008 crisis to the literature published the period after. Since this crisis is not so recent anymore, this comparison is possible. The bibliometric study compares the literature published in 2009-2015 to the literature published in 2016-2022.
The mentioned articles which reviewed the literature on fiscal policy in the immediate years after the 2008 crisis considered that the Keynesian resurgence was very limited and that there was no revolution in the way of thinking fiscal policy like the ones that took place in the 1930s and the 1970s.
The research published in this article can demonstrate if this revolution finally took place in the period not so close to the crisis or not. In one hand, one can think that intellectual revolutions take time to happen, and so, it needed some years to emerge. On the other hand, one can think that when the memories of the crisis start to fade away, the literature can consider this type of crisis increasingly less relevant.
This article has more three sections. Section 1 provides a summary of the papers about the changes in the literature on fiscal policy after the 2008 crisis. Section 2 explains how the bibliometric study in this article was conducted and presents the results. Section 3 brings the conclusion.
1. THE REVIEWS OF THE LITERATURE ON FISCAL POLICY IN THE AFTERMATH OF THE 2008 CRISIS
Some papers published not so many years after the 2008 crisis reviewed the literature on fiscal policy and discussed if there was a shift in the mainstream view.
Santos (2011) observed that after 2008, the mainstream accepted some role for fiscal policy as a tool for stabilization of the level of economic activity, but not so much as Keynes. Mainstream authors accepted only semi-automatic stabilizers, in which rules and some room for discretionary policy are reconciled, and they supported a fiscal consolidation during expansion times so that there is the possibility of expansionary fiscal policy during recession times. The theoretical structure of the New Neoclassical Synthesis remained: the DSGE models were still in use. Some adaptations took place, like the temporary absence of Ricardian equivalence during times of crisis.
Lopreato (2012, 2014) observed that the mainstream started accepting the role for the fiscal policy as a tool for stabilization of the level of economic activity only in very extraordinary circumstances like the one prevailing in the immediate period after the 2008 crisis: recession and zero lower bound.
Paula, Saraiva & Modenesi (2018) observed that the 2008 crisis did not damage the theoretical structure of the New Neoclassical Synthesis: the rational expectations, the natural rate of unemployment, the price rigidity in the short term, the absence of impact of the demand on the output in the long-term, the short-term interest rate as the most important monetary policy tool were preserved. The fiscal policy as a tool for stabilization of the level of economic activity was not a consensus topic for the members of the mainstream. The ones who accepted it supported this tool only in certain circumstances, during times of crisis. They were still different of the post-Keynesians, who considered that fiscal policy should always be used as a mechanism to manage the aggregate demand (Paula, Saraiva & Modenesi, 2018).
Krugman (2018) observed that there was a higher acceptance of discretionary fiscal policy by the mainstream, but no new model emerged because the existing models were enough to evaluate the fiscal policy.
Through a bibliometric study, Brito (2021) observed that although heterodox approach increased its relevance in the academic literature on fiscal policy after 2008, the New Neoclassical Synthesis remained the mainstream approach. But even this approach started showing more tolerance to the role for the fiscal policy as a tool for stabilization of the level of economic activity, in times of recession and zero lower bound. Another shift took place in the main topics concerning fiscal policy. Before 2008, fiscal federalism, impact of institutions and political cycles on fiscal policy, interaction between fiscal policy and monetary policy, public debt management and influence of the fiscal policy on the long-term growth were the most important topics. After 2008, the multipliers and the fiscal policy as a tool for stabilization of the level of economic activity became the most important topics.
In summary, these papers showed that the scenario Lavoie (2010) considered to have the highest probability really took place: there was no great change in the dominant view on fiscal policy, like the Keynesian revolution of the 1930s and the Monetarist counter-revolution of the 1970s, but the mainstream did not remain unchanged.
2. THE BIBLIOMETRIC RESEARCH
2.1 The test
A bibliometrical research was conducted in order to compare the academic literature on fiscal policy from 2009-2015 to the academic literature on fiscal policy from 2016-2022. This comparison can answer if there was any shift in the dominant approach and in the topics concerning fiscal policy.
Two bases of articles were downloaded from the Web of Science on December 29th, 2023. Both are the result of the search of articles in English about Economics with the words “fiscal policy” or “fiscal policies” in the title, in the keywords or in the abstract. The first one covered the period from 2009 to 2015. The second one covered the period from 2016 to 2022.
The bases downloaded from the Web of Science were used to create bibliometric maps in the software VOS. These maps show articles or authors represented by balls, whose size depends on the number of citations, grouped in clusters. There are different criteria to create these maps.
The bibliographic coupling considers the references shared by the articles. A bibliographic coupling map shows two articles very close to each other if many texts are included in the references of both. The co-citation indicates how the articles or the authors are cited. A co-citation map shows two articles very close to each other if many other texts cite both. The maps of bibliographic coupling of 2009-2015 and 2016-2022 show only articles published in these periods because the intention of these maps is to present the literature published in these periods. The maps of co-citation of 2009-2015 and 2016-2022 show articles published many years before too, because the intention of these maps is to present the literature cited by the literature published in these periods, which can cite older texts.
2.2 The results
In the test conducted for this work, three maps were created for each base: the bibliographic coupling by article map, the co-citation by article map, and the co-citation by author map. Only articles with more than 20 citations were included in these maps.1
Figure 1 presents the Map of bibliographic coupling created in the VOS of articles with at least 20 citations listed in a base of articles in English about Economics with the words “fiscal policy” or “fiscal policies” in the title, keywords or abstract, published between 2009 and 2015, downloaded from the Web of Science on December 29th, 2023.
Figure 2 presents the Map of co-citation created in the VOS of articles with at least 20 citations using a base of articles in English about Economics with the words “fiscal policy” or “fiscal policies” in the title, keywords or abstract, published between 2009 and 2015, downloaded from the Web of Science on December 29th, 2023.
Figure 3 presents the Map of co-citation created in the VOS of authors using a base of articles in English about Economics with the words “fiscal policy” or “fiscal policies” in the title, keywords or abstract, published between 2009 and 2015, downloaded from the Web of Science on December 29th, 2023.
Figure 4 presents the Map of bibliographic coupling created in the VOS of articles with at least 20 citations listed in a base of articles in English about Economics with the words “fiscal policy” or “fiscal policies” in the title, keywords or abstract, published between 2016 and 2022, downloaded from the Web of Science on December 29th, 2023.
Figure 5 presents the Map of co-citation created in the VOS of articles with at least 20 citations using a base of articles in English about Economics with the words “fiscal policy” or “fiscal policies” in the title, keywords or abstract, published between 2016 and 2022, downloaded from the Web of Science on December 29th, 2023.
Figure 6 presents the Map of co-citation created in the VOS of authors using a base of articles in English about Economics with the words “fiscal policy” or “fiscal policies” in the title, keywords or abstract, published between 2016 and 2022, downloaded from the Web of Science on December 29th, 2023.
Figure 7 presents the number and the color of the clusters of the maps.
The bibliographic coupling map for 2009-2015 has eight clusters. Cluster 1 is composed mostly of articles that use models to discuss the impact of the fiscal policy on the output. Cluster 2 is composed mostly of empirical studies about multipliers. Cluster 3 is composed mostly of articles about the impact of political cycles and institutions on fiscal policy. Cluster 4 is composed mostly of empirical studies about the impact of public debt on output growth. Cluster 5 is composed mostly of articles about uncertainty related to fiscal policy. Cluster 6 is composed mostly of articles about the interaction between fiscal policy and international relations. Clusters 7 and 8 are too small, so, it is not possible to determine their dominant topics.
The co-citation map of articles for 2009-2015 has five clusters. Cluster 1 is composed mostly of articles about the impact of political cycles and institutions on fiscal policy. Cluster 2 is composed mostly of empirical studies about multipliers. Cluster 3 is composed mostly of articles about policy rules. Cluster 4 is composed mostly of articles about policy rules and impact of fiscal policy on long-term growth. Cluster 5 is composed mostly of articles about public debt.
The co-citation map of authors for 2009-2015 has eight clusters. Cluster 3 is composed of authors who usually write about political cycles. Cluster 7 is composed of heterodox authors. The other clusters do not present homogeneity.
The bibliographic coupling map for 2016-2022 has eight clusters. Cluster 1 is composed mostly of articles about uncertainty related to fiscal policy. Cluster 2 is composed mostly of articles about interaction between monetary policy and fiscal policy. Cluster 3 is composed mostly of articles about impact of the fiscal policy on the output. Articles that use theoretical and empirical models are included in this cluster. Cluster 4 is composed mostly of articles about the relationship between public debt and long-term output growth, but this cluster is diversified and includes other subjects like institutions and environment. Cluster 5 is composed mostly of articles about political cycles, institutions, and the environment. Cluster 6 is composed mostly of articles about the impact of fiscal policy on environmental and technological innovation. Clusters 7 and 8 are too small, so, it is not possible to determine their dominant topics.
The co-citation map of articles for 2016-2022 has three clusters. Cluster 1 is composed mostly of articles about public debt and long-term growth. Cluster 2 is composed mostly of articles discussing the impact of fiscal policy on output through theoretical models. Cluster 3 is composed mostly of empirical studies about multipliers.
The co-citation map of authors for 2016-2022 has five clusters. Cluster 3 is composed of authors who usually write about political cycles. Cluster 5 is mostly composed of heterodox authors but also includes some orthodox ones. The other clusters do not present homogeneity.
2.3 Discussion of the results
In both 2009-2015 and 2016-2022, the heterodox occupied only a small fringe of the literature, as it was possible to observe in the bibliometric maps. Articles written by heterodox authors were very few in these maps, and they were not the most cited. Both maps do not have a cluster dominated by heterodox authors.
2.3.1 The 2009-2015 period
All the articles in the bibliographic coupling map of 2009-2015 have a sum of 29.504 citations. The most cited heterodox article was Dosi, Fagiolo et al. (2013), the 21st place, which has 189 citations. The most cited article of the map was Auerbach & Gorodnichenko (2012), with 721 citations. The other heterodox articles in the top 100 cited were Dosi, Fagiolo et al. (2015), with 125 citations, and Fazzari, Morley & Panovska (2015), with 81 citations.
The small share of the heterodox approaches in the literature can also be observed in the co-citation map for articles, in which there is no heterodox article with a high number of citations, and in the co-citation map for authors, in which the heterodox ones occupy only a small edge, in the Cluster 7, which includes Arestis, Lavoie, Hein and Godley. The biggest of these four in the map is Arestis, who has 81 citations. By contrast, Alesina has 386 citations, Barro has 369 and Blanchard has 237.
The most cited article of the bibliographic coupling map is Auerbach & Gorodnichenko (2012), which is an empirical study of multipliers through the observation of random variables. The second one is Mountford & Uhlig (2009), which is an empirical study based on vector autoregression (VAR). The third one is Eggertsson & Krugman (2012), which presents a DSGE model with debt-constrained agents to evaluate the impact of the fiscal policy. The fourth one is Fernández-Villaverde, Guerron-Quintana et al. (2015), which presents an empirical study about the impact of the uncertainty about fiscal policy on the economic activity. The fifth one is Metens & Ravn (2013), which is an empirical study about the impact of the changes of taxation on the output in the US (see Table A1 in the Appendix).
Although the New Neoclassical Synthesis was not replaced by heterodox approaches and kept the status of mainstream approach, changes in the New Neoclassical Synthesis took place in the immediate years following 2008. Before this date, most of the focus of the mainstream approach to fiscal policy was directed to fiscal federalism, impact of institutions and political cycles on fiscal policy, interaction between monetary policy and fiscal policy, and public debt management (Brito, 2021). After this date, the mainstream became very interested on the multipliers, on the impact of the fiscal policy on the output and on the role as tool of stabilization of the economic activity. The first and the second clusters of the bibliographic coupling of 2009-2015 map are composed by articles related to these topics. These clusters together own 47% of the citations of all articles included in this map.
The most cited articles of Clusters 1 and 2 presented favorable view on the use of fiscal policy for stabilizing economic activity in some circumstances. The model presented by Eggertsson & Krugman (2012), the most cited article of Cluster 1, offered theoretical support for an expansionary fiscal policy in periods of recession and zero lower bound. It is very similar to typical New Neoclassical Synthesis models, but the presence of debt-constrained agents makes the fiscal policy effective in these periods. Debt-constrained agents do not behave according to the Ricardian equivalence. The empirical study presented by Auerbach & Gorodnichenko (2012) showed that the fiscal policy multipliers in the US are between 0 and 0.5 at normal times and between 1 and 1.5 at times of recession.
In summary, the bibliometric maps of 2009-2015 showed that the scenario Lavoie (2010) considered to have the highest probability of actually having happened. The New Neoclassical Synthesis became more tolerant with the use of fiscal policy as a tool for stabilization of economic activity but kept the status of mainstream approach.
2.3.2 The 2016-2022 period
Like the 2009-2015 maps, the 2016-2022 maps also showed heterodox articles and authors occupying only a small fringe. All the articles in the bibliographic coupling map of 2016-2022 have a sum of 16.162 citations. The most cited heterodox article was Stockhammer (2016), the 41st place, which has 72 citations. The most cited article on the map was Baker, Bloom & Davis (2016), with 4.114 citations.
The small share of the heterodox approaches in the literature can also be observed in the co-citation map for articles, in which there is no heterodox article with a high number of citations, and in the co-citation map for authors, in which there is no 100% heterodox cluster. Heterodox authors, like Arestis, Dosi, Kaldor, Stockhammer, Lavoie, Fontana, Skott, Dutt, Palley and Hein belong to Cluster 5, which is a small cluster compared to the other ones.
Concerning the balance between the orthodox and the heterodox articles, the bibliographic coupling map of 2009-2015 is similar to the bibliographic coupling map of 2016-2022. On the other hand, an important shift took place in the main topic of the most cited articles. While the 2009-2015 map was dominated by articles about multipliers, the 2016-2022 map was dominated by articles about the impact of the uncertainty concerning fiscal policy on macroeconomic variables. Cluster 1, which was composed of articles about this topic, has 43% of all citations in the map. Four of the five most cited articles in the map belong to Cluster 1.
The dominance of articles about uncertainty shows that the literature on fiscal policy of the 2016-2022 period moved away from a Keynesian resurgence in comparison to the literature on fiscal policy of the 2009-2015 period. Keynes wrote about the market economy as a source of uncertainty and the macroeconomic policy as a way of mitigating it (Terra & Goudard, 2018). The articles which led Cluster 1 in the number of citations, like Baker, Bloom & Davis (2016), Bonaime, Gulen & Ion (2018) and Caldara, Fuentes-Alberto et al. (2016) presented the macroeconomic policy as a source of uncertainty.
Besides the transition from the dominance of articles about multipliers to the dominance of articles about uncertainty, the 2016-2022 period had an important event that has impacted on the literature about fiscal policy: the Covid-19 pandemic. In the group of the 50 most cited articles of the 2016-2022, 6 were related to this event. Padhan & Prabheesh (2021) considered it necessary to increase the international coordination of fiscal policies during the pandemic. De Vito & Gómez (2020) showed how the pandemic could affect the liquidity of the firms, and which fiscal policies would be better to mitigate this problem. Heyden & Heyden (2021) showed that the financial markets had a negative reaction of the announcement of fiscal policies during the pandemic. Guerrieri, Lorenzoni et al. (2022) showed that the pandemic caused negative supply shocks in some sectors which led to negative demand shocks in other sectors and that fiscal policies should reduce this damage. Makin & Layton (2021) considered that the fiscal policies in response to the pandemic were necessary but too expansionary, and so, a contraction was necessary after the pandemic. Wei & Han (2021) showed that the pandemic weakened the transmission of the monetary policy to the financial markets, and so, the fiscal policy became more important as a stabilization tool.
3. CONCLUSION
The bibliometric study presented in this article had the intent to compare the academic literature about fiscal policy of two periods after the 2008 crisis. The first one is the period between 2009 and 2015, the immediate years after this crisis. The second one is the period between 2016 and 2022, when this crisis became more distant.
Soon after 2008, there was a debate concerning the possibility of a Keynesian resurgence, in which the mainstream literature would support again the fiscal policy as a tool for stabilization of economic activity. Some studies of the academic literature on fiscal policy in the immediate years following the crisis showed limited shifts. There was an increasing interest of the mainstream literature for the theme multipliers and some acceptance of discretionary fiscal policy in a special circumstance, in which there was a combination of recession and zero lower bound. Although heterodox approaches slightly increased their share in the academic literature, they remained a fringe literature. The New Neoclassical Synthesis maintained its status of mainstream approach.
The study conducted for this article showed that the dominant academic literature on fiscal policy became even more distant of a Keynesian resurgence in the second period, when the 2008 crisis became more distant. The heterodox articles and authors still occupied only a small area of the bibliographic coupling and co-citation maps. The articles about multipliers of the mainstream approach had a decreasing weight in the literature about fiscal policy, which became dominated by articles about uncertainty. These articles did not present Keynes’s view that the market economy was a source of economic uncertainty and the macroeconomic policies, including the fiscal policy, should mitigate it. They presented the fiscal policy as source of uncertainty.
Besides the change of the main theme of the academic literature about fiscal policy from 2009-2015 to 2016-2022, it is possible to observe also that another major crisis, which took place in the second period, had an influence in the literature about fiscal policy: the Covid-19 pandemic. Some articles considered the need of expansionary fiscal policies during the pandemic, other ones considered that these policies were too expansionary or that these policies increased uncertainty.
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Figures 1 to 7, in color, are available at http://graficosmarcelobrito.my.canvas.site.
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JEL Classification:
B00.
APPENDIX
The 20 most cited articles of the map of bibliographic coupling created in the VOS of articles with at least 20 citations listed in a base of articles in English about Economics with the words “fiscal policy” or “fiscal policies” in the title, keywords or abstract, published between 2009 and 2015, downloaded from the Web of Science on December 29th, 2023
The 20 most cited articles of the map of bibliographic coupling created in the VOS of articles with at least 20 citations listed in a base of articles in English about Economics with the words “fiscal policy” or “fiscal policies” in the title, keywords or abstract, published between 2016 and 2022, downloaded from the Web of Science on December 29th, 2023,
Figures 1 to 7, in color, are available at http://graficosmarcelobrito.my.canvas.site.
