The international effects of government spending composition

This paper incorporates a distinction between spending for government employment and spending for non-wage government consumption in a ‘new open economy macroeconomics’ model. Our results show that a permanent reduction in public employment in one country increases relative private consumption and appreciates the domestic exchange rate. We also compare announced reductions in domestic government employment and consumption, showing that these two policies have the same qualitative effects. When the reduction in public employment is used to finance increased government non-wage spending, the analytical results of the model are ambiguous, but a numerical analysis shows that relative consumption increases for a reasonable parameterization.     

Boosting confidence: Is there a role for fiscal policy?

This paper investigates the widely held view that expansionary fiscal policy can boost consumer and business confidence, which will stimulate private spending and sustain economic activity. We find evidence in favor of this conjecture, i.e., cuts in direct taxes generate a positive effect on consumer and business confidence, while the same applies in cases of higher non-wage government consumption. However, higher government wage bills and government investment reduce confidence, with the effect being more pronounced when the Debt to GDP ratio is high, possibly because they entail a permanent increase in the size of the public sector, which would have to be financed by higher future taxes.     

Discretionary fiscal policy and economic activity in Greece

This paper investigates the effects of discretionary fiscal policy changes on economic activity and its subcomponents in Greece in the period 2000–2011. Changes in government spending and net taxes have Keynesian effects. An increase in government consumption has the most pronounced positive effects on output growth, private consumption and non-residential investment, while it reduces residential investment. Cuts in the public investment programme crowd in private investment, but are associated negatively with the net exports ratio. Both indirect and direct tax hikes lower private consumption, private investment and output growth. However, higher direct taxes by lowering disposable income they reduce import demand, thus, improving the trade balance.     

Do expectations matter? Reassessing the effects of government spending on key macroeconomic variables in Germany

This article contributes to the debate on how to properly identify exogenous fiscal shocks in the data. We include expectations held by consumers and firms into the standard vector autoregression (VAR) framework based on information from historical issues of the German political magazine Der Spiegel. The findings underscore the need to account for expectations, as failing to do so leads to significant misinterpretation of the effects of government spending. When neglecting anticipation effects, our results support the recent findings for Germany by pointing to a rather positive effect of government spending on GDP. However, inclusion of expectations yields a change in this effect, suggesting that government spending is much less beneficial for GDP, as it crowds out private consumption and investment.     

政府支出对居民消费的影响——对Barro-Ricardo等价之谜的中国经验分析

本文基于居民消费跨期最优化分析框架,从理论及实证角度分析了政府支出对居民消费的影响。理论研究表明,政府支出对居民消费的影响主要取决于消费者相对风险规避系数及私人消费支出与政府支出之间的相关系数。并以中国为例,在李嘉图等价框架下从经验角度考察了中国政府支出对居民消费的影响。短期内,李嘉图等价不成立,政府支出与居民消费呈互补关系,即政府支出增加将导致居民消费增加。尤其需要注意的是,与通过征税来增加政府支出相比,通过发行国债增加政府支出对总需求的扩张效应更大,积极的财政政策在我国是有效的。但在长期中,政府支出将完全挤占居民消费支出,因而支出政策不宜用于实现政府的长期经济目标。     

财政支出、经济外部性与政府双重角色转换——基于DSGE模型的理论分析和实证研究

将政府财政支出分解为消费性支出和生产性支出,建立了政府消费性支出与私人消费之间、政府资本与私人资本之间的非线性替代关系函数。将政府公共生产性服务和公共消费性服务的双重角色加入动态随机一般均衡(DSGE)模型,分析不同经济结构下政府的双重角色对中国宏观经济的影响差异。实证结果显示:政府生产性支出的弹性系数正在变小,政府生产性支出对中国宏观经济的影响在逐渐消失;在合理监管下,政府消费性支出有利于改善和提高人们的生活质量,并且不会对私人投资产生挤出效应。因此,政府应加大对财政消费性支出的监管力度。     

The macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy in Spain

This paper focuses on the effects of fiscal policy in Spain analysed in a VAR context. Fiscal shocks are found to involve significant effects on GDP, private consumption, private investment, interest rates and prices. Non-Keynesian effects are observed. Moreover, evidence on the channels highlighted in the literature for such effects to arise is found, notably the effects of permanent income on consumption and investment on the demand side, coupled with the response of the equilibrium wage on the supply side affecting entrepreneurial profits and investment. The response of interest rates seems to reinforce both effects. Furthermore, the different readings of spending or taxes do not affect macroeconomic variables homogeneously.     

Variation in the fiscal multiplier with the method of financing: evidence across industrial countries

Government spending has often varied with the business cycle to stimulate the economy and to revive economic conditions. However, the state of public finances has often necessitated higher borrowing to finance widening fiscal deficits. Indeed, recent austerity packages around the globe have crystalized the importance of fiscal consolidation against the backdrop of rising public debt. To shed light on recent debates regarding fiscal multipliers, the article estimates variation in these multipliers with the method of financing, using annual data for a sample of industrial countries. There is a large variation in the effects of expansionary and contractinary government spending shocks on economic variables within and across countries. The significant effects of negative government spending shocks (fiscal contraction) appear more prevalent than those of expansionary shocks on real output growth, price inflation and nominal wage inflation. Consistent with theory’s predictions, the fiscal multiplier is more likely to be negative when government spending is financed by issuing debt and less likely in the case of monetization. The evidence confirms concerns about the negative effect of higher debt and more expensive financing on private activity, countering the effectiveness of fiscal policy.     

Effects of government spending on private investment

This paper investigates the effects of military and non-military public expenditures on gross private investment using cointegration and error-correction analysis. The latter type of public spending is disagreggated into expenditures of infrastructure, consumption and other general government expenditures. The empirical evidence from four emerging European countries namely, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain suggests that in some cases public capital spending stimulates investment, while in others it depresses it. Also, the results tentatively indicate that defence spending exerts no influence on private investment, thus adding to the ongoing controversy of the economic effects of military spending.     

公共资本投资、内生经济增长与合理政府债务规模*

本文基于一个具有内生增长机制的三部门世代交叠模型,讨论了政府举债为公共投资进行融资时经济的长期均衡;同时,通过数值模拟方法考察了我国的均衡政府债务规模及其影响因素。结果表明：在特定条件下,经济系统存在一个正的均衡政府债务-产出比重,该债务比重水平明显受到公共投资—产出比重、公共投资的债务融资比重、民间资本产出弹性等参数的影响。但是,均衡政府债务比重并不是无限上升的,当上述参数超过特定临界值时,经济系统无法达到均衡,政府债务-产出之比将持续上升,财政将不可持续。另外,当民间资本产出弹性较低时,较高的均衡政府债务比重可能导致经济运行动态无效率。数值模拟结果还显示,基于不同的假设情形,我国的均衡政府债务-产出比重均在不同程度上高于当前实际的政府债务规模,这为我国在未来期间实施扩张性财政政策提供了有利的依据。     

Asymmetric output growth effects of government spending: Cross-sectional and panel data evidence

Using a model that accommodates asymmetric adjustments of output growth to changes in growth of government spending, the effects of aggregate and disaggregate government spending variables on output growth are examined. Both cross-section and panel regression estimations are conducted. Robustness of results to joint-endogeneity of output and government spending, alternative conditioning variables, and cointegration is investigated. Aggregate government spending appears to have positive output growth effects particularly in periods of below-trend growth in this variable. The government sector's productivity appears to be higher than non-government sector's productivity when spending growth is below-trend growth and only for non-OECD countries; no differences in sectoral productivities are detected for OECD countries. Government consumption spending has no significant output growth effects, but government investment spending has positive output growth effects particularly when its growth falls below its trend-growth; this favorable effect turns negative when government investment spending growth exceeds its trend-growth. Results are robust across alternative model specifications and estimation methods.     

Government spending and economic growth in the OECD countries

Using panel data from 1995 to 2011 for 34 OECD countries, we examine the effects of government consumption spending, public social spending, and public investment on economic growth. We use a generalized method of moments estimation technique to solve inconsistency problems with fixed effects and random effects panel estimation. We find that an increase in public social spending has a significant negative effect on subsequent economic growth. Government consumption spending and public investment have no significant effect on subsequent economic growth.     

The effects of fiscal consolidations on the composition of government spending

ABSTRACT

In response to increasing debt paths, governments often implement fiscal consolidation programs. This paper studies the impact of these programs on the composition of government spending. System-GMM estimations performed on a sample of 53 developed and emerging countries over 1980–2011 reveal that fiscal consolidations significantly reduce the government investment-to-consumption ratio, i.e. a composition effect. Robust to a wide set of tests, including when using the narrative approach to identify fiscal consolidations, this significantly stronger contraction of government investment with respect to government consumption is at work particularly when debt is high and in the low phase of the economic cycle. Therefore, in such contexts, fiscal consolidations aimed at short-run stabilization may hurt the economy in the long-run through their detrimental effect on public investment, calling for a reflection upon how they could be re-designed to allow avoiding such undesirable consequences.     

政府支出与私人消费的关系研究——基于跨国数据(1983-2008年)的面板协整分析

文章运用面板协整分析方法和世界上36个国家(20个发达国家和16个发展中国家)1983-2008年的面板数据进行跨国研究,通过建立变系数面板模型并结合可支配收入和宏观经济环境的影响,分析了政府支出和私人消费的关系。研究结果显示,总体上而言,样本国家的政府消费支出与私人消费成互补关系,可支配收入仍然是影响私人消费的主要因素,宏观经济环境(经济开放程度和失业率)对消费的影响在统计上很不显著。为了扩大消费,中国政府应实施积极的财政政策、扩大财政支出和提高社会保障水平以及切实解决民生基本难题。     

政府支出与私人消费的关系研究——基于跨国数据（1983—2008年）的面板协整分析

文章运用面板协整分析方法和世界上36个国家（20个发达国家和16个发展中国家）1983—2008年的面板数据进行跨国研究,通过建立变系数面板模型并结合可支配收入和宏观经济环境的影响,分析了政府支出和私人消费的关系。研究结果显示,总体上而言,样本国家的政府消费支出与私人消费成互补关系,可支配收入仍然是影响私人消费的主要因素,宏观经济环境（经济开放程度和失业率）对消费的影响在统计上很不显著。为了扩大消费,中国政府应实施积极的财政政策、扩大财政支出和提高社会保障水平以及切实解决民生基本难题。     

Public capital formation and labor productivity growth in Chile

Following the lead of the endogenous growth literature, this article analyzes the impact on labor productivity growth of public and private investment spending in Chile. Using cointegration analysis, the results of the dynamic labor productivity function for the 1960–95 period show that (lagged) public and private investment spending, as well as the rate of growth in exports, has a positive and highly significant effect on the rate of labor productivity growth. The estimates also indicate that increases in government consumption spending have a negative effect on the rate of labor productivity growth, thus suggesting that the composition of government spending may also play an important role in determining the rate of labor productivity growth. The findings call into question the politically expedient policy in many Latin American countries of disproportionately reducing public capital expenditures to meet targeted reductions in the fiscal deficit as a proportion of GDP.     

Dynamics of Macroeconomic Adjustment with Growth: Some Simulation Results *

This paper examines the impact of several macroeconomic policies, both demand and supply management policies, on economic activity within a small macroeconomic simulation model. The model is based on a standard analytical framework that underlies adjustment policies in developing economies (Des). The standard approach has been to use aggregate government expenditure as an instrument of fiscal policy to shock economic activity in a DE, with a negative dynamic response typically observed. In the context of such a small macroeconomic simulation model we decompose government expenditure into consumption and investment expenditure. Simulation exercises with and without model-consistent expectations throw up some contrasting results in the sense that fiscal policy can influence output positively through the effects of public sector investment on private investment in a DE such as India. [F43, E62]     

Public and Private Investments in Greece: Complementary or Substitute ‘Goods’?

This paper investigates whether government investment spending exerts a positive or a negative effect on private investments. Time-series data for Greece as well as the methodology of cointegration suggest that, over the period 1948-80, public investment spending exerted a positive effect on private investments, while over the period 1981-96, the relationship turned out to be negative. Empirical results indicate that the large increase of the public share in the total investment process tended to crowd out private investments and to jeopardize the growth process of the economy.     

Does the crowding-in effect of public spending on private consumption undermine neoclassical models?

Empirical evidence from vector autoregressions (VARs) showing that public spending shocks crowd in private consumption has been seen as evidence against standard neoclassical models of the business cycle. We show that a standard real business cycle model in which all agents including the government optimize is compatible with the results from the empirical literature. A VAR estimated using artificial data simulated from the model indicates that, under standard assumptions to identify public spending shocks, an increase in public spending is associated with an increase in private consumption and the real wage. The implied impulse responses are qualitatively and quantitatively similar to those in the empirical literature.     

Consumption multipliers of different types of public spending: a structural vector error correction analysis for the UK

The aim of this paper is to investigate the relationship between government spending and private consumption in the UK, for which there is scarce previous empirical evidence. We disaggregate public expenditure into three categories and search for the corresponding private consumption multipliers. Our analysis is based on the estimation of a structural vector error correction model with quarterly non-interpolated data for the period 1981:1–2007:4. Initially, we estimate negative but barely significant effects on consumption of shocks to total public spending. Then, using the public spending breaking down, we find that while shocks to public wages crowd-out private consumption as predicted by neoclassical models, shocks to the non-systematic component of social spending and government purchases of goods and services generate a positive reaction, so to crowd-in private consumption. Thus, the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of fiscal multipliers on private consumption change across different public spending categories. Our findings suggest that any empirical support of competing theoretical models on the issue would benefit from a disaggregation of government expenditure, rather than focusing on the aggregate measure.