The austerity policy applied by the Eurozone peripheral governments under the International Monetary Fund (IMF)/ European Central Bank (ECB)/ European Commission financial assistance programs has contributed to a sharp reduction of aggregate demand, regardless of the unconventional measures undertaken by the ECB. The ECB decreased the interest rate on the main refinancing operations to zero, and is buying assets from banks on a massive scale under the Expanded Asset Purchase Programme. The fact that these extraordinary measures have not been enough to produce a strong recovery, shifts the focus again to fiscal policy. Central to assessing the effects of fiscal policy are the value of impact fiscal multipliers and the size of hysteretic effects. There is widespread evidence that public expenditure multipliers are greater than one when the economy is depressed and the interest rates are close to zero. However, less is known about the importance of hysteresis effects. Using the linear play model of hysteresis we find that hysteresis effects are important in the Eurozone peripheral countries. Large fiscal impact multipliers combined with the presence of hysteresis implies that front-loaded austerity depresses the economy in the short run and these effects may persist in the long run.

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就业滞后：避免欧元区前期财政整顿的论据

尽管欧洲央行采取了非常规措施，但欧元区外围国家政府在国际货币基金组织（IMF）/欧洲中央银行（ECB）/欧盟委员会金融援助计划下实施的紧缩政策导致总需求急剧下降。欧洲央行将主要再融资操作的利率降至零，并在扩大资产购买计划下从银行大规模购买资产。这些非常规措施还不足以产生强劲的复苏，这一事实将焦点再次转移到财政政策上。评估财政政策影响的核心是影响财政乘数的值和滞后效应的大小。有广泛证据表明，当经济低迷且利率接近于零时，公共支出乘数大于 1。然而，人们对滞后效应的重要性知之甚少。使用滞后的线性游戏模型，我们发现滞后效应在欧元区外围国家很重要。巨大的财政影响乘数加上滞后现象的存在意味着前期紧缩在短期内会抑制经济，而这些影响可能会在长期持续存在。