On Monday, the White House will release President Obama’s budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2016. The president is expected to reemphasize his previous fiscal approach of higher spending coupled with higher taxes, while completely ignoring the country’s long‐​term fiscal problems.


A new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) provides evidence of the best way to solve those problems, should the president decide to tackle the nation’s fiscal mess. The study, by Alberto Alesina, Omar Barbiero, and others, tries to answer one central question: What is the best way for a country to rebalance policy to solve a fiscal crisis? 


The study looked at Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development member countries and their response to the financial crisis from 2009 to 2013. Following the crisis, many of those countries became burdened by large amounts of debt and deficit as a result of rising spending and falling revenues. Government spending grew to an average of 43 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) within the European Union.


With a fiscal crisis on the horizon, many of the countries turned to so‐​called “austerity” measures in order to promote economic growth. Some countries adopted policies that focused on increasing revenue to close budget gaps, while others focused spending cuts. Researchers distinguished between fiscal plans based on spending cuts and those based upon tax increases.


The researchers found that spending cuts, not tax increases, are the best way to resolve a fiscal crisis. According to the researchers, “Fiscal adjustments based upon cuts in spending appear to have been much less costly, in terms of output losses, than those based upon tax increases.” Tax‐​based fiscal plans are an inefficient solution to fiscal problems in the long‐​term. An average tax‐​based plan with a size of 1 percent of total GDP was shown to shrink the economy by almost twice that amount over the next three years.


The NBER study provides valuable insight regarding the effectiveness of different types of fiscal adjustment plans. Fiscal plans emphasizing cuts in spending are more successful in promoting economic growth in the long term.


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Thanks to Kristina Pepe for her excellent research assistance on this piece.