Quantifying spillovers of coordinated investment stimulus in the EU

Abstract

Abstract In response to the recession brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, EU-wide macroeconomic policy has launched an unprecedented coordinated fiscal expansion across the EU (Next Generation EU or NGEU), financed by issuing common debt. Given NGEU’s nature, it is essential to take fiscal spillovers into consideration when assessing the overall macroeconomic effects of this fiscal expansion. We quantify the effects of the additional public investment for all Member States in a rich macro-model with a trade structure. Our model suggests that, on average, GDP effects are around one-third larger when explicitly accounting for the spillover effects from individual-country measures. For small open economies with smaller NGEU allocations, spillover effects account for the bulk of the GDP impact. We also quantify key transmission channels.