Aghion, PhilippeMarinescu, Ioana2009-10-142007Aghion, Philippe, and Ioana Marinescu. 2007. Cyclical budgetary policy and economic growth: What do we learn from OECD panel data? In NBER Macroeconomics Annual, ed. Daron Acemoglu, Kenneth Rogoff, and Michael Woodford, 251-278. Chicago: University of Chicago Press978-0-226-00202-6http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3350066This paper uses yearly panel data on OECD countries to analyze the relationship between growth and the cyclicality of government debt. We develop new time-varying estimates of the cyclicality of public debt. Our main findings can be summarized as follows: (i) less procyclical public debt growth can have significantly positive effects on productivity growth, in particular when financial development is lower; (ii) public debt growth has become increasingly countercyclical in most OECD countries over the past twenty years, but this trend has been less pronounced in the EMU; (iii) less financially developed or more open economies display less countercyclical public debt growth.en-USMonograph or Book2009-10-14