Fiscal policy and growth forecasts in the EU: are official forecasters still misestimating fiscal multipliers?

Blanchard and Leigh (Am Econ Rev 103(3):117–120, 2013; IMF 62(2):179–212, 2014) find fiscal multipliers to be underestimated in the EU deep recession of early 2010s. Using two 2013–2018 datasets for 26 member states, assembled from Stability Convergence Programmes European Commission’s Spring Forecasts, this paper shows that multiplier estimates have been overestimated post-crisis period. Forecasters then are still not capturing accurately impact policy has on output growth rates misestimating a manner opposite reported by Leigh.