In search of the multiplier for federal spending in the states during the New Deal

Author / Creator

Fishback, Price Van Meter

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Online

Summary

If there was any time to expect a large peace-time multiplier effect from federal spending in the states, it would have been during the period from 1930 through 1940 when unemployment rates never f...

If there was any time to expect a large peace-time multiplier effect from federal spending in the states, it would have been during the period from 1930 through 1940 when unemployment rates never fell below 10 percent and there was ample idle capacity. We develop an annual panel data set for the 48 continental states from 1930 through 1940 with evidence on federal government grants, loans, and tax collections and a variety of measures of economic activity. Using panel data methods we estimate a multiplier, defined as the change in per capita economic activity in response to an additional dollar per capita of federal funds. For personal income, which includes transfer payments as income, the estimate ranges from 0.91 for the combination of government grants and loans to 1.39 when only grants are considered. It is important to distinguish between the effects of farm subsidies and the combination of public works and relief grants. The personal income multiplier for public works and relief was around 1.67, while the effect of farm payments to take land out of production reduced personal income by 0.57. Multipliers for a more production-based measure of state income per capita after removing nonwork relief transfers and adding back payroll taxes are about 10 to 15 percent smaller. The multiplier for wages and salaries was substantially less than one, as was the multiplier for retail sales. The impact of the federal spending on employment was negligible and may have been negative. The results may help explain why measures of income have recovered more rapidly than measures of employment in both the 1930s and in the current era.

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