Abstract The rise in US partisan conflict following the Great Recession led to a popular belief that uncertainty about fiscal policy was impeding output growth. I explore this hypothesis by nesting it in a standard structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model traditionally used for estimating fiscal multipliers. I augment the model with stochastic volatility (a measure of uncertainty) and allow that to interact with the endogenous variables. I consider various trend assumptions, subsamples and information sets and find that the evidence does not support this hypothesis. The results reveal that there is no systematic relationship between fiscal policy uncertainty and output. Moreover, a time-varying parameter version of the model shows that the lack of consistency across specifications is not driven by changes in the transmission of uncertainty shocks over time. Finally, I revisit Fernández-Villaverde, Guerrón-Quintana, Kuester, and Rubio-Ramírez (Fernández-Villaverde, J., P. Guerrón-Quintana, K. Kuester, and J. Rubio-Ramírez. 2015. “Fiscal Volatility Shocks and Economic Activity.” American Economic Review 105: 3352–3384) who find a significant negative relationship between fiscal policy uncertainty and output. I show that when their estimation is modified to incorporate the uncertainty around the estimate of uncertainty, their empirical result falls in line with the findings in this paper.

中文翻译：

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财政政策不确定性和美国产出

摘要 大衰退后美国党派冲突的加剧导致人们普遍认为，财政政策的不确定性正在阻碍产出增长。我通过将其嵌套在传统上用于估计财政乘数的标准结构向量自回归 (SVAR) 模型中来探索这一假设。我用随机波动率（不确定性的度量）增强模型，并允许它与内生变量相互作用。我考虑了各种趋势假设、子样本和信息集，发现证据不支持这一假设。结果表明，财政政策的不确定性与产出之间不存在系统关系。而且，该模型的随时间变化的参数版本表明，规格之间缺乏一致性并不是由不确定性冲击随时间推移的传输变化造成的。最后，我重温了 Fernández-Villaverde、Guerrón-Quintana、Kuester 和 Rubio-Ramírez（Fernández-Villaverde, J.、P. Guerrón-Quintana、K. Kuester 和 J. Rubio-Ramírez。2015 年。“Fiscal Volatility Shocks and经济活动。”美国经济评论 105: 3352-3384）他们发现财政政策不确定性和产出之间存在显着的负相关关系。我表明，当他们的估计被修改以包含围绕不确定性估计的不确定性时，他们的实证结果与本文的发现一致。Guerrón-Quintana、K. Kuester 和 J. Rubio-Ramírez。2015 年。“财政波动性冲击和经济活动。” 美国经济评论 105: 3352–3384)，他们发现财政政策的不确定性与产出之间存在显着的负相关关系。我表明，当他们的估计被修改以包含围绕不确定性估计的不确定性时，他们的实证结果与本文的发现一致。Guerrón-Quintana、K. Kuester 和 J. Rubio-Ramírez。2015 年。“财政波动性冲击和经济活动。” 美国经济评论 105: 3352–3384)，他们发现财政政策的不确定性与产出之间存在显着的负相关关系。我表明，当他们的估计被修改以包含围绕不确定性估计的不确定性时，他们的实证结果与本文的发现一致。