Empirical evidence on the stabilizing role of fiscal and monetary policies in the US

I apply SVAR tools and counterfactual simulation techniques to study the (de)stabilizing role of monetary and fiscal policies in the US, using quarterly data from 1955 to 2005. Monetary and fiscal disturbances contributed much less to output volatility in the second part of the sample. This result stems from their smaller impact and, to a lesser extent, from a decline in the respective variance. Systematic taxes net of transfers were the most important stabilizing force in the course of postwar recessions until the eighties. Monetary policy had a comparatively smaller role in offsetting the downturns in activity at those episodes. Net taxes have, however, suffered a marked lost of effectiveness in recent decades.