These OECD-average elasticities are then applied to the country-specific changes in harmonised unemployment and output gap that were observed between 2007 and 2009. The unweighted OECD-average spending prediction based on observed declines in the output gap is just over 1% of GDP higher than actual spending. This historically low responsiveness of social spending to falling output could be sizeable enough to have weakened the automatic stabilisation effect from social spending during the 2008-09 recession, but any such effect may have been offset by the large discretionary fiscal stimulus enacted by many governments.