Mark Perry On Stimulus Lags

Mark Perry of Carpe Diem blog has a piece on "Why Isn't The Stimulus Stimulating? LAGS." He writes:

Some years ago, I did a study of every anti-recession program in the postwar era. I found that they invariably impacted on the economy too late to really help. There were many reasons for this. First, economists were slow to see a recession coming and often didn't see one at all until we were already well into it.

Then it took time to convince policymakers to do something and get legislation enacted. By the time a countercyclical program was signed into law, the recession was always over. Consequently, the stimulus stimulated when the economy was already on the upswing. The result was that these programs stimulated inflation more than they stimulated jobs and growth.