A common thread unites the research on the politics of macroeconomic policy, namely, that specific policy instruments are targeted at specific policy goals. Policy substitutability, the use of different policy instruments to affect the same goal, is implicitly denied. Yet, economic theory indicates that policymakers have multiple policy instruments at their disposal that can be used alternately or in some combination to manipulate their economies. This paper explicitly addresses macroeconomic policy substitutability among a set of advanced industrial nations, and focuses on whether certain policies are being used together by governments for political purposes.