Cross‐Country Spillovers from Fiscal Consolidations

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, many OECD countries adopted fiscal consolidation strategies to reduce their debt‐to‐GDP ratios. This paper investigates the effects of fiscal consolidation on trading partners’ growth through trade linkages. Using a measure of exogenous fiscal shocks in export markets, fiscal consolidation spillovers are found to slow down domestic growth and decrease employment. To the extent that fiscal consolidations are synchronised, fiscal policies have large spillover effects on output. Spillovers of fiscal consolidations on growth are found to be initially larger between countries belonging to currency unions, though this larger impact vanishes over the medium term. Larger spillovers of fiscal consolidation coincide with lower bilateral exports, higher bilateral imports and relative increases in unit labour costs in currency unions. Spillovers of fiscal consolidation are also found to be more detrimental to domestic growth during economic downturns in export markets.     

Foreign currency debt,financial crises and economic growth: A long-run view

Foreign currency debt is widely believed to increase risks of financial crisis, especially after being implicated as a cause of the East Asian crisis in the late 1990s. In this paper, we study the effects of foreign currency debt on currency and debt crises and its indirect effects on short-term growth and long-run output effects in both 1880–1913 and 1973–2003 for 45 countries. Greater ratios of foreign currency debt to total debt are associated with increased risks of currency and debt crises, although the strength of the association depends crucially on the size of a country's reserve base and its policy credibility. We found that financial crises, driven by exposure to foreign currency, resulted in significant permanent output losses. We estimate some implications of our findings for the risks posed by currently high levels of foreign currency liabilities in eastern Europe.     

Government finance in the wake of currency crises

We address three questions: (i) Can classical models be reconciled with the fact that many crises are marked by high rates of depreciation and small increases in seignorage revenue? (ii) What are the implications of different financing methods for post-crisis rates of inflation and depreciation? (iii) How do governments pay for the fiscal costs associated with currency crises? To study these questions we use a general equilibrium model in which prospective government deficits trigger a currency crisis. We then use our model in conjunction with fiscal data to interpret government financing in the wake of three recent currency crises: Korea (1997), Mexico (1994) and Turkey (2001).     

The Twin Crises: Determinants of Banking and Currency Crises in the Turkish Economy

Several twin crises occurred in the Turkish economy in the last three decades. In this article, we aim to analyze the link between banking and currency crises and to illustrate the essential determinants of these twin crises by developing a multivariate logit model for the period 1990–2013. The empirical findings show that Turkish currency crises are mainly due to excessive fiscal deficits, rises in short-term external debt, overvaluation of Turkish lira, and external adverse shocks; banking crises are primarily caused by excessive money supplies and bank short positions. The empirical findings also indicate that banking crises lead to currency crises, and vice versa.     

Banking crises: An equal opportunity menace

The historical frequency of banking crises is similar in advanced and developing countries, with quantitative parallels in both the run-ups and the aftermath. We establish these regularities using a dataset spanning from the early 1800s to the present. Banking crises weaken fiscal positions, with government revenues invariably contracting. Three years after a crisis central government debt increases by about 86%. The fiscal burden of banking crisis extends beyond the cost of the bailouts. We find that systemic banking crises are typically preceded by asset price bubbles, large capital inflows and credit booms, in rich and poor countries alike.     

Fiscal Policy in a Currency Union at the Zero Lower Bound

This paper constructs a two‐country core–periphery New Keynesian model of a currency union to address the interaction between the objectives of regionally directed fiscal policy constrained by a single currency and the aggregate use of fiscal policy in face of the zero lower bound (ZLB) on policy interest rates. We identify an optimal path of aggregate and relative fiscal policy responses to a negative region‐specific demand shock. Our results show that (i) in a monetary union, the optimal policy response to an asymmetric reduction in demand concentrated in the periphery always entails a relative shift of fiscal expenditure toward the worse‐affected regions, (ii) though no aggregate fiscal response is required outside the ZLB, and (iii) optimal union‐wide fiscal policy is expansionary at the ZLB. Therefore, optimal policy always entails an expansion in the periphery at the ZLB, but the optimal fiscal response in the core regions can be either expansionary or contractionary depending on the parameters of the model. However, (iv) fiscal expansion in the core is warranted if the periphery cannot implement an expansion due to constraints on public spending.     

Is monetary policy effective in dampening fiscally induced exchange market pressures? Evidence from Ghana

Episodes of currency crises in Ghana over the recent past were examined. We also address two fundamental questions using VAR framework. First, how does fiscal policy relate to exchange market pressures (EMPs) in Ghana? Second, whether persistent fiscal slippages hinder the effective use of interest rate as monetary policy tool to influence undesirable exchange rate fluctuations? We found sterilization interventions to be more effective than interest rate as a monetary policy tool in moderating tensions in foreign exchange market. Higher recurrent expenditure was generally associated with higher EMP, while capital expenditures tend to assuage EMP. We recommend strong policy coordination between the fiscal and monetary authorities to ensure macroeconomic stability.     

Fiscal Discipline and Exchange Rate Arrangements: Evidence from the Caribbean

This paper assesses the nature of fiscal discipline under alternative exchange rate regimes. First, it shows that fiscal agencies under a currency union with a fixed exchange rate can have a larger incentive to overspend or "free ride" than those under other exchange rate regimes, owing to the agencies' ability to spread the costs of overspending in inflation tax across both time, given the fixed exchange rate, and space, given the currency union. In contrast, such free-riding behavior does not arise under flexible regimes owing to the immediate inflationary impact of spending. Next, empirically, fiscal stances in countries with fixed pegs and currency union regimes demonstrate greater free-riding behavior than do countries with more flexible regimes in fifteen Caribbean countries from 1983 to 2004.     

Sources of Fluctuations: The Case of MENA

In February 2001, Turkey became the latest emerging market to experience a devastating crisis, following the collapse of its soft exchange rate peg. The crisis severely damaged the country's banking system and led to an unprecedented contraction in economic activity. The boom that preceded it seemed to be relatively short lived, as the initial rush of capital outflow occurred just eleven months after the start of the program, and the fatal exit just three months later. This paper discusses the factors that seemed to play an important role in the collapse of Turkey's International Monetary Fund (IMF)-supported exchange rate-based stabilization plan just thirteen months after its commencement. It is often difficult to attribute such crises entirely to a single factor, and not always possible to arrive at a strong verdict by analyzing economic developments in light of, or in the manner formally suggested by, the alternative models commonly used to analyze currency crises in the literature. In the Turkish case, enumerating the many factors that may have contributed to the collapse is important and very useful--yet this should not obscure the critical role played by the failure to establish or achieve tangible progress toward a sustainable fiscal regime. Not recognizing this fundamental weakness could easily lead observers to emphasize design flaws as the main culprit or to argue that the collapse could have been avoided if several other factors had broken more in Turkey's favor.     

Visual predictions of currency crises using self‐organizing maps

Throughout the 1990s, four global waves of financial turmoil occurred. The beginning of the 21st century has also suffered from several crisis episodes, including the global financial crisis of 2008–2009. However, to date, the forecasting results are still disappointing. This paper examines whether new insights can be gained from the application of the self‐organizing map (SOM) – a non‐parametric neural‐network‐based visualization tool. We develop a SOM‐based model for prediction of currency crises. We evaluate the predictive power of the model and compare it with that of a classical probit model. The results indicate that the SOM‐based model is a feasible tool for predicting currency crises. Moreover, its visual capabilities facilitate the understanding of the factors and conditions that contribute to the emergence of currency crises. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the International Dimension of Fiscal Policy

This paper analyzes the international dimension of fiscal policy in a small open economy framework. We consider the case in which the government finances its spending by levying distortionary taxes and issuing state‐contingent debt. While in a closed economy taxes are essentially invariant, in an open economy taxes can be as volatile as output. This is because the presence of a terms of trade externality introduces efficient fluctuations in the consumption–leisure wedge driven by movements in the real exchange rate. As a result, the optimal fiscal rule suggests that taxes should be varied to replicate these fluctuations.     

Foreign Currency Derivatives versus Foreign Currency Debt and the Hedging Premium

This paper compares the effect on firm value of different foreign currency (FC) financial hedging strategies identified by type of exposure (short‐ or long‐term) and type of instrument (forwards, options, swaps and foreign currency debt). We find that hedging instruments depend on the type of exposure. Short‐term instruments such as FC forwards and/or options are used to hedge short‐term exposure generated from export activity while FC debt and FC swaps into foreign currency (but not into domestic currency) are used to hedge long‐term exposure arising from assets located in foreign locations. Our results relating to the value effects of foreign currency hedging indicate that foreign currency derivatives use increases firm value but there is no hedging premium associated with foreign currency debt hedging, except when combined with foreign currency derivatives. Taken individually, FC swaps generate more value than short‐term derivatives.     

Fiscal Positions and Government Bond Yields in OECD Countries

We examine the effect of fiscal positions, both the level of debt and the fiscal balance, on long‐term government bond yields in the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD). To control for the endogenity of fiscal positions to the business cycle we utilize forward projections of fiscal positions from the OECD's Economic Outlook. In a panel regression over the period from 1988 to 2007, we find a robust and significant effect of fiscal positions on long‐term bond yields. Our estimates imply that the marginal effect of the projected deterioration of fiscal positions adds about 60 basis points to U.S. bond yields by 2015, with effects on other G‐7 bond yields generally being smaller.     

Fiscal and Monetary Policy Coordination,Macroeconomic Stability,and Sovereign Risk Premia

In standard macroeconomic models, equilibrium stability and uniqueness require monetary policy to actively target inflation and fiscal policy to ensure long‐run debt sustainability. We show analytically that these requirements change, and depend on the cyclicality of fiscal policy, when government debt is risky. In that case, budget deficits raise interest rates and crowd out consumption. Consequently, countercyclical fiscal policies reduce the parameter space supporting stable and unique equilibria and are feasible only if complemented with more aggressive debt consolidation and/or active monetary policy. Stability is more easily achieved, however, under procyclical fiscal policies.     

Banking,debt, and currency crises in developed countries: Stylized facts and early warning indicators

We construct and explore a new quarterly dataset covering crisis episodes in 40 developed countries over 1970–2010. First, we present stylized facts on banking, debt, and currency crises. Using panel vector autoregression we find that banking and debt crises are interrelated and both typically precede currency crises, but not vice versa. Banking crises are the most costly in terms of the overall output loss, and output takes about six years to recover. Second, on a reduced sample we try to identify early warning indicators of crises specific to developed economies, accounting for model uncertainty by means of Bayesian model averaging. The most consistent result across the various specifications and time horizons is that significant growth of domestic private credit precedes banking crises, while rising money market rates and global corporate spreads are also leading indicators worth monitoring. For currency crises, we also corroborate the role of rising domestic private credit and money market rates and detect the relevance of domestic currency overvaluation. The role of other indicators differs according to the type of crisis and the warning horizon selected, but it mostly seems easier to find reliable predictors at a horizon shorter than two years. Early warning indicators of debt crises are difficult to uncover due to the low occurrence of such episodes in our dataset. We also employ a signaling approach to derive the threshold value for the best single indicator (domestic private credit), and finally we provide a composite early warning index that further increases the usefulness of the model.     

松货币紧财政:我国宏观经济政策组合的现实选择

财政政策和货币政策必须合理搭配,方可以发挥其政策效应.当前我国的经济运行已经出现重大转折,经济发展的中期上升趋势已经确立,原有行之有效的财政和货币政策组合也因此难以适应实际需要,必须及时进行相应的调整.     

Fiscal Stimulus in Times of High Debt: Reconsidering Multipliers and Twin Deficits

We investigate the impact of fiscal stimuli at different levels of the government debt‐to‐GDP ratio for a sample of 17 European countries from 1970 to 2010. This is implemented in an interacted panel VAR framework in which all coefficient parameters are allowed to change continuously with the debt‐to‐GDP ratio. We find that responses to government spending shocks exhibit strong nonlinear behavior. While the overall cumulative effect of a spending shock on real GDP is positive and significant at moderate debt‐to‐GDP ratios, this effect turns negative as the ratio increases. The total cumulative effect on the trade balance as a share of GDP is negative at first but switches sign at higher levels of debt. Consequently, depending on the degree of public indebtedness, our results accommodate long‐run fiscal multipliers that are greater and smaller than one or even negative as well as twin deficit and twin divergence behavior within one sample and time period. From a policy perspective, these results lend additional support to increased prudence at high public debt ratios because the effectiveness of fiscal stimuli to boost economic activity or resolve external imbalances may not be guaranteed.     

Fiscal Sustainability in a New Keynesian Model

Recent work on optimal monetary and fiscal policy in New Keynesian models suggests that it is optimal to allow steady‐state debt to follow a random walk. In this paper we consider the nature of the time inconsistency involved in such a policy and its implication for discretionary policymaking. We show that governments are tempted, given inflationary expectations, to utilize their monetary and fiscal instruments in the initial period to change the ultimate debt burden they need to service. We demonstrate that this temptation is only eliminated if following shocks, the new steady‐state debt is equal to the original (efficient) debt level even though there is no explicit debt target in the government's objective function. Analytically and in a series of numerical simulations we show which instrument is used to stabilize the debt depends crucially on the degree of nominal inertia and the size of the debt stock. We also show that the welfare consequences of introducing debt are negligible for precommitment policies, but can be significant for discretionary policy. Finally, we assess the credibility of commitment policy by considering a quasi‐commitment policy, which allows for different probabilities of reneging on past promises.     

The Determinants of the Volatility of Fiscal Policy Discretion

This paper investigates the determinants of the volatility of fiscal policy discretion. Using a linear dynamic panel data model for 113 countries from 1980 to 2006 and a system‐GMM estimator, we find that an increase in the number of episodes of government crisis, less democracy and presidentialist systems raise the volatility of the discretionary component of fiscal policy. Additionally, we show that countries with larger populations and less flexible exchange rate systems are more insured against uncertainty about the conduct of fiscal policy. Our results are robust to various regional dummy variables, different subsets of countries and the presence of high inflation and crisis episodes.     

Austerity and Private Debt

This study provides empirical evidence that the costs of austerity crucially depend on the level of private indebtedness. In particular, fiscal consolidations lead to severe contractions when implemented in high private‐debt states. Contrary, fiscal consolidations have no significant effect on economic activity when private debt is low. These results are robust to alternative definitions of private‐debt overhang, the composition of fiscal consolidations, and controlling for the state of the business cycle and government debt overhang. I show that deterioration in household balance sheets is important to understand private debt‐dependent effects of austerity.