Tying governments' hands in commodity taxation

In the 1970s, taxation of 'windfall' profits from primary productsand intervention in trade and production tempted governmentsinto expansionary fiscal policies, whilst stifling the privatesector and depressing growth. However, the experience of themid-1990s coffee boom has so far been more favourable: thoseAfrican countries which liberalised and left a large share ofthe 'windfall' with the private sector, and which committedthemselves to fiscal austerity via adjustment programmes, haveshown better results in terms of fiscal stability, private sectorresponses and economic growth than countries which did not reform.These findings suggest that constraints on discretionary governmentpolicies are desirable, and that domestic institutions and internationalcommitments could serve this purpose.     

Uncertainty and Fiscal Policy in an Asymmetric Monetary Union

We examine monetary and fiscal interactions in a monetary union model with uncertainty due to imperfect central bank transparency. It is first shown that monetary uncertainty discourages excessive taxation and may thus reduce average inflation and output distortions. However, as countries enter the monetary union, this tax-restraining effect of uncertainty is mitigated. The monetary union may hence lead to higher fiscal distortions in some member countries, depending on governments’ spending targets and on the change in the degree of uncertainty implied by common monetary policy.     

Aid Effectiveness,Debt Relief and Public Finance Response: Evidence from a Panel of HIPC Countries

Substantial amounts of debt relief have been granted to a set of low-income countries, as an alternative aid modality. Although the theoretical case for debt relief is firmly established, only empirical analysis can show whether debt relief is indeed a (more) effective mode of aid delivery. We investigate the linkages between debt relief and other fiscal variables such as current expenditure, government investment, taxation and domestic borrowing, in comparison to the effects of grants and concessional loans. We find that the fiscal impact of HIPC debt relief follows fairly complex dynamics. For example, debt relief initially reduces government investment, but the effect becomes positive after two years, well outperforming other modes of aid delivery. JEL no. F34, F35, O11, O19     

Can We Prevent Boom-Bust Cycles During Euro Area Accession?

Euro-area accession caused boom-bust cycles in several catching-up economies. Declining interest rates and easier financing conditions fuelled spending and borrowing from abroad. Over time inflation deteriorated external competitiveness, turning the boom into a bust. We ask whether such a scenario can be avoided using macroeconomic tools that are available in the period of joining a monetary union: central parity revaluation, fiscal tightening or increased taxation. We find that exchange rate revaluation is the most attractive option. It simultaneously trims the expansion of output and domestic demand, reduces the cost pressure and ranks first in terms of welfare.     

IMPACT OF MACROECONOMIC CONDITIONS ON GOVERNMENT POPULARITY: AN ECOWAS INVESTIGATION

A main focus of this paper is our analysis of the vote function using the vote share of government parties as the proxy variable for government popularity. Utilising Pedroni's (1999 ) panel cointegrated test and the fully modified OLS (FMOLS) technique, we empirically examine the long-run co-movement relationship in a bivariate model between government popularity and macroeconomic outcomes as well as a lag term in accordance with updated data for 11 countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) during the 1975-2005 period. The results indicate the existence of panel cointegration relationships in our empirical model. The panel FMOLS shows that several macroeconomic shocks are responsible for positive contributions to government popularity, especially in regard to economic growth and government expenditures. By contrast, currency depreciation, higher interest payments, and a greater taxation burden on households all contribute to lower government support in our sample countries. Based on such evidence, important policy implications emerge for ECOWAS.     

State-Building in Resource-Rich Economies

One of the most significant differences between developing countries and today’s advanced states is the fact that many developing countries rely heavily on one or several natural resources. That such dependence shapes the state’s ability to tax—its fiscal capacity—is commonly argued in the political science and applied development literatures. This paper approaches the issue from an economic angle. Our analytical foundation builds upon a novel theoretical framework, and allows us to model fiscal capacity as an ex ante investment under uncertainty. For our panel of 30 hydrocarbon-rich economies, instrumental-variables results provide strong empirical support for our theoretical proposition: resource intensification weakens state-building by impeding the state’s fiscal capacity. This result provides an inaugural validation of the economic analytics of state-capacity determinants: understanding these determinants serves to build stronger states and support sustainable paths of development. Our result also suggests that one of the main tools of fiscal policy-analysis in resource-rich economies, namely optimal taxation, could gain in practical relevance by incorporating capacity-constraints into the analytical fiscal-framework.     

Strategies for fiscal consolidation in Japan

Japan's key fiscal challenge is to put public finances on a more sustainable footing. This paper investigates the macroeconomic implications of alternative fiscal strategies for Japan using the IMF's Global Fiscal Model. The results suggest that (i) an adjustment package that achieves primary balance through lower social transfers and government spending and a higher VAT is the most viable option and has a smaller negative impact on growth than other fiscal measures; (ii) achieving primary balance is not sufficient to stabilize the net debt ratio; (iii) prefunding future aging costs provides greater long-term benefits compared with less front-loaded strategies; (iv) tax reform involving shifting from corporate taxation to consumption taxation could mitigate the short-term output losses associated with fiscal consolidation; (v) the spillovers to the rest of the world from consolidation in Japan are positive in the medium term, but modest.     

对西部地区财税问题的思考

本文认为,西部地区经济欠发达有财税政策方面的原因,如地区财政支出总量不足,结构欠佳,经济发展的财政基础较为薄弱;东西部地区投资的原有财税政策差异明显,严重阻碍了资本的西流;缺乏强有力的财政政策投融资体系与政策的支持等。因此,要开发西部,关键是财税政策的调整与改进。     

Monetary policy transmission and macroeconomic policy coordination in Pacific island countries

During the global financial crisis, central banks in Pacific island countries eased monetary policy to stimulate economic activity. Judging by the ensuing movements in commercial bank interest rates and private sector credit, monetary policy transmission appears to be weak. This is confirmed by an empirical examination of interest rate pass‐through and credit growth. Weak credit demand and under‐developed financial markets seem to have limited the effectiveness of monetary policy, but the inflexibility of exchange rates and rising real interest rates have also served to frustrate the central banks' efforts despite a supporting fiscal policy. While highlighting the importance of developing domestic financial markets in the long run, this experience also points to the need to coordinate macroeconomic policies and to use all macroeconomic tools available in conducting countercyclical policies, including exchange rate flexibility.     

Fiscal devaluations: evidence using bilateral trade balance data

We study the effects of fiscal devaluations on the trade balances of European Union countries over the 2000–2014 period using bilateral trade balance data. This enables us to control for the coincidence of tax policy measures in different countries, which is an aspect left unconsidered in previous econometric studies. A fiscal devaluation consisting of a budget-neutral tax shift in the amount of 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) from employers’ social security contributions to value added tax leads to a short-term improvement of bilateral trade balance ranging between 0.3 and 0.6% of GDP. An extrapolation of our baseline estimate to the overall trade balance yields an impact of 4.3% of GDP for the whole sample, which is slightly higher than presented in previous empirical research. Applying extrapolation to the trade deficit countries in the euro area shows that these countries’ balance of trade with the rest of the euro area improves by only 0.75% of GDP. Thus, the magnitude of the fiscal devaluation impact on the trade balance varies significantly across countries, depending on their trade openness, among other potentially relevant factors.     

Income Inequality,Taxation, and Growth

Much recent theoretical and empirical research has focused on the relationship between income distribution and economic growth. The fiscal policy approach argues that inequality is linked to pressure for redistributionary taxation, leading to low capital investment and, therefore, growth. Empirical analyses are consonant with this view in that the long-run relationship between inequality and growth is negative. However, several empirical inconsistencies with the fiscal policy approach do emerge: (a) there exists a short-run, positive relationship between income inequality and growth and (b) the relationship between inequality and taxation is mixed, at best. This paper presents a simple theoretical model that reconciles the intuitively appealing fiscal policy approach with the empirical findings.     

The Effects of Fiscal Policy in a Small Open Economy with a Fixed Exchange Rate

We study the empirical effects of fiscal policy in Denmark since the adoption of a fixed exchange rate policy in 1982. Denmark’s fixed exchange rate implies that the nominal interest rate remains fixed after a fiscal expansion, facilitating a substantial impact of the fiscal stimulus on the real economy. On the other hand, the large degree of openness of the Danish economy means that a sizeable share of the fiscal stimulus will be directed towards imported goods. Our results suggest that the ‘monetary accomodation channel’ dominates the ‘leakage effect’ in the short run. We demonstrate that fiscal stimulus has a rather large impact on economic activity in the very short run, with a government spending multiplier of 1.1 on impact in our preferred specification. We also find that the effects of fiscal stimulus are rather short-lived in Denmark, with the effect on output becoming insignificant after around two years. The fiscal multiplier is above 1 only in the first quarter, and drops to 0.6 one year after the shock. We also find that in the short run, the government spending multiplier is larger than the tax multiplier. Finally, we demonstrate that exogenous shocks to government spending account for less than 10 % of the movements in output over the business cycle in Denmark.     

SHOULD SOUTH AFRICA HAVE A FISCAL RULE?

Over the past three decades many countries have struggled to find solutions to their persistent public sector deficits. For some the solution to this problem seemingly became the adoption of fiscal rules. This paper considers the applicability of one such rule, namely the output‐sensitive deficit rule of Taylor, and in particular its applicability to South Africa. The paper shows that its applicability in developing countries such as South Africa might be limited due to higher output volatility that may cause output‐sensitive deficit rules such as the Taylor rule to become more volatile. Such volatility in the deficit/GDP ratio may cause fears that government may not be able to maintain the stability of the debt/GDP ratio, thereby again introducing fiscal unsustainability. To address this problem the paper augments the Taylor rule to reduce the volatility in the public debt/GDP ratio and demonstrates how these rules would have performed in South Africa. It concludes that the augmented fiscal rule might contribute to both fiscal sustainability and economic stability in South Africa.     

The Macroeconomics Effects of Government Spending Under Fiscal Foresight

Consumption and output responses to fiscal shocks are studied in a model with fiscal foresight. Fiscal foresight reduces both output multipliers and consumption. However, key features such as sticky wages, credit constrained households and elastic labour supply, are able to generate both sizeable output multipliers and positive consumption, in effect preserving key Keynesian effects. This model fits a developing economy like South Africa well since it is able to capture transparent communication of government as well as control for credit constrained consumption and sticky wages.     

我国财税政策支持农村金融的制度缺陷

目前我国初步建立了农村金融的财税支持体系,但现行财税支持政策与金融税制结构和财政管理体制不对称,与农村金融体系和新农村建设不相适应,也与我国农村金融面临的主要约束不相符合,上述制度缺陷影响了农村金融的财税支持政策效果。本文针对上述制度缺陷从明确政府职能定位、优化财税扶持政策、建立多层次的农业信贷风险分担体系、提高财政支持政策的规范性和层次性四个方面提出了相应的政策建议。     

中国财税体制改革的战略取向:2010～2020

中国财税体制改革的基本思路是:减少财政层级,为落实省以下分税制和深化配套改革铺平道路;建立健全财力与事权相匹配的财税体制改革;促进增长方式转变践行科学发展观的改革;深化财政预算管理制度的改革。在改革中要遵循简税制、宽税基、低税率、严征管的原则,优化税制结构,完善以流转税和所得税为主体税种,财产税、资源税及其他特定目的税类相互配合的复合税制体系税。此外,还应深化财政管理体制改革,提高财政资金分配和使用的规范性、安全性和有效性。     

THE REVENUE-EXPENDITURE NEXUS: HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR SOUTH AFRICA

Results from unit root and cointegration tests suggest that, allowing for structural breaks, government revenue and expenditure in South Africa during 1895‐2005 were I(1) series and cointegrated. Results from Granger‐type causality tests suggest that a bidirectional Granger‐causal relation existed between revenue and expenditure for the full sample period and for sub‐periods up to the 1960s, consistent with the so‐called “fiscal synchronisation hypothesis”. However, in the 1960s the causal relation appears to have shifted to run from expenditure to taxation, consistent with Peacock and Wiseman's “displacement effect”. In the context of the recent fiscal consolidation literature, the South African fiscal experience would appear to be generally consistent with either revenue‐ or expenditure‐led fiscal consolidation efforts, but with the more recent evidence favoring expenditure‐led consolidations.     

Debt targets and fiscal sustainability in an era of monetary independence

This paper investigates how to achieve flexibility in fiscal policy without sacrificing credibility or independence in monetary policy. The idea is to create a framework that generates fewer conflicts between policies but greater discipline within them. We assume an independent central bank and restraints on national fiscal policies. Using a theoretical model, we examine the consequences of assigning leadership to fiscal policies in order to exploit the implicit (but rule based) coordination available under standard transmission mechanisms and to allow priorities and targets to differ between policy makers. This works best when leadership takes the form of a debt rule (with hard or soft targets) to precommit fiscal policies over the longer term; but monetary independence to guarantee the credibility and discipline in the short term policies. Compared to the uncoordinated policies operating in Europe, inflation biases and debt/deficit ratios are both lower for no loss in output volatility. That matches the experience of the UK, an economy whose empirical reaction functions show fiscal leadership. On a wider sample of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries, the gains from debt targeting are estimated at 2–4% of gross domestic product.     

从我国房产税发展及发达国家经验看房产税改革

房产税是中外各国政府广为开征的古老的税种,它成为各国政府财政收入的重要来源。中共十八届三中全会提出要深化财税体制改革,加快房地产税立法并适时推进改革,这说明我国房产税改革将会进一步加快实施。比较研究上海、重庆房产税试点情况以及发达国家的房产税税制设计,对于我国房产税下一阶段的改革具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Provincial fiscal positions and business cylce synchronization across China

This paper examines to what extent Chinese provinces with similar fiscal policies have synchronous business cycles. Following Darvas, Rose, and Szapáry (2007), we create a measure of fiscal policy divergence between provinces i and j and see if it is associated with the correlation of output movements between i and j. To examine this relation, we use the correlation model of Frankel and Rose (1998). Since causation can run from both fiscal policy to output fluctuations and from output fluctuations to fiscal policy, we instrument for fiscal policy using government expenditure on cultural activities which remains steady across the business cycle. Results show that provinces with similar budgetary positions tend to have similar business cycle movements.