Fiscal Consolidation and the Public Sector Balance Sheet in South Africa

Between 1994 and 2008 the South African government reduced its debt/GDP ratio from almost 50% to 27%. Unfortunately this reduction was accompanied by a significant decrease in government's fixed capital/GDP ratio from 90% to 55% – fiscal sustainability might have been restored, but government's balance sheet did not improve. A similar story can be told for State Owned Enterprises. Since the Great Recession the fiscal situation worsened markedly – the public debt ratio again approaches 50%. To restore fiscal sustainability this article suggests that the government faces two options: (1) to create room for future countercyclical policy, the government must cut current expenditure and reduce the public debt/GDP ratio to its pre‐crisis level, or (2) substitute much‐needed infrastructure capital expenditure for current expenditure while stabilising the debt/GDP ratio at its post‐crisis level. Given that the much lower fixed capital/GDP ratio inhibits economic growth, the latter option might be more sensible.     

中国地方政府债务违约风险评估——基于债务可持续性分析框架

结合中国地方政府财政反应特征,文章在债务可持续性分析框架中,首次识别了基础盈余主动调整的有效性条件作为分析前提,进而完善了债务不可持续性的定义内涵和度量方法,最终建立了地方政府债务违约风险评估模型。凭借此模型,对中国地方政府债务违约风险进行了评估,主要结论如下：在经济增速不稳定背景下,施行顺周期财政政策的中国地方政府,容易落入基础盈余主动调整无效的境况,因而在对地方政府债务可持续性进行分析时,有必要考虑基础盈余主动调整的有效性;通过检验发现,新构造的债务不可持续概率和条件期望债务空间指标,均能较好反映地方政府债务违约风险,而单纯的债务率指标对地方政府债务违约风险无解释力;在2019年,天津、贵州和青海等地已处于财政疲劳引起的债务不可持续状态,内蒙古等六省的条件期望债务空间不足20%,其余省份的条件期望债务空间仍相对充裕;最后,通过考察债务可持续性的改善渠道又进一步发现,财政透明度的提高可有效降低地方政府债务违约风险。     

Fiscal sustainability in Japan

This paper investigates fiscal sustainability of Japan by providing a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model that features the low interest rate of the government bond relative to the economic growth rate to mimic the actual data. We evaluate fiscal sustainability by investigating whether the expected path of the debt-to-GDP ratio stabilizes or increases without bound. The debt-to-GDP ratio depends crucially on the projected growth rate and the fiscal policy rule. If the government does not react to the current fiscal crisis, the debt-to-GDP ratio will increase without bound, and then the fiscal policy is not sustainable. If the fiscal rule uses Bohn’s (1998) idea that involves the response of the primary surplus to the debt, sustainability improves. This rule provides a useful and realistic reform plan in the short and long runs.     

Japanese government debt and sustainability of fiscal policy

We construct quarterly series of the revenues, expenditures, and debt outstanding for Japan from 1980 to 2010, and analyze the sustainability of the fiscal policy. We pursue three approaches to examine the sustainability. First, we calculate the minimum tax rate that stabilizes the debt to GDP ratio given the future government expenditures. Using 2010 as the base year, we find that the government revenue to GDP ratio must rise permanently to 40–47% (from the current 33%) to stabilize the debt to GDP ratio. Second, we estimate the response of the primary surplus when the debt to GDP ratio increases. We allow the relationship to fluctuate between two “regimes” using a Markov switching model. In both regimes, the primary surplus to GDP ratio fails to respond positively to debt, which suggests the process is explosive. Finally, we estimate a fiscal policy function and a monetary policy function with Markov switching. We find that the fiscal policy is “active” (the tax revenues do not rise when the debt increases) and the monetary policy is “passive” (the interest rate does not react to the inflation rate sufficiently) in both regimes. These results suggest that the current fiscal situation for the Japanese government is not sustainable.     

Fiscal sustainability in the wake of the economic crisis in Korea

The total amount of government debt was expected to rise sharply over the following several years in the wake of the Korean financial and economic crisis in 1997, raising concern about the sustainability of government deficits and fiscal consolidation. This paper provides an overview of Korea’s fiscal stance after the financial crisis and the policy implications for fiscal consolidation by assessing fiscal sustainability. Sustainability tests are carried out and show that Korean fiscal policy for the period 1970–1999 should be regarded as sustainable. Indicators of sustainability are also measured to that Korean fiscal policy for the period 1970–1996 is sustainable. However, both the primary and tax gap indicators with a sharp rise in the debt ratios are shown to be worsening since 1997 indicating increasingly possible unsustainable fiscal policies. It implies that the current primary deficit is too large and current taxes are too low to stabilize the debt ratio.     

后危机时代美国财政可持续性研究

美国国债绝对额已跃居世界首位,美国财政可持续性受到世界各国的广泛关注。通过构建财政可持续性分析框架,结合经验数据实证分析,结果表明,尽管美国财政现阶段仍然处于可持续水平,但已经出现偏离稳态的迹象。进一步研究发现,未来美国债务货币化程度将不断加深,由此促使未来国债利率负担不断攀升,同时债务高位运行将导致经济增速回落,财政偏离可持续性水平的现象难以改变,如果美国没有调整财政政策,那么财政发生危机的概率极高。     

Fiscal limits and sovereign default risk in Japan

It is widely known that Japan has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio among OECD countries. If Japan’s national debt continues to balloon, fiscal crisis may occur in the future. This paper develops a closed economy model with defaultable government debt and conducts a simulation to investigate future sovereign debt risk.First, we estimate the fiscal limit which is defined as the sum of the discounted maximum fiscal surplus in all future periods. It is assumed that a partial default occurs when the amount of government debt exceeds the fiscal limit. We calculate the revenue-maximizing tax rate at the peak of the Laffer curve to derive the fiscal limit. As a result, the estimated average fiscal limit in Japan is much higher than that in Greece. In the Japanese economy, households are more patient and desire greater savings from greater discount factor derived from a lower real interest rate. Household saving habits support government bonds. This is the main reason why the Japanese government could have had a massive debt in addition to some room to raise the tax rate. Second, we simulate the model, using the estimated fiscal limit and non-linear computational methods. If the government debt-to-GDP ratio continues to increase for the next 20 years, the default probability will be over 10% and the sovereign risk premium will be approximately 2%. Furthermore, the default probability will reach approximately 80% and the sovereign risk premium will be 10% 30 years later.     

Optimal government investment and public debt in an economic growth model

This paper establishes a nonlinear theoretical model and uses panel smoothing transitional regression to study the optimal levels of government investment and public debt in a growth model using a panel dataset of 65 developed and developing economies over the period 1991–2014. The empirical results show that the effect of government investment on economic growth is decreasing as the level of expenditure rises. When the government investment/GDP ratio reaches a certain point (threshold), the effect of government investment could change from positive to negative. The effect of public debt on economic growth demonstrates a similar pattern. Our results suggest that there must exist an optimal level of government investment or public debt as far as economic growth is concerned, although the optimal level may vary in different economies. The government investment/GDP and public debt/GDP ratios of China were respectively 15.66% and 41.14% in 2014. These levels did not reach their respective thresholds and hence their effects on economic growth were still in the positive territory. Despite the expansion of government investment and public debt in China after the world financial crisis, their scales had not affected the country's economic growth during the data period.     

Unsustainable sovereign debt—is the Euro crisis only the tip of the iceberg?

As a direct effect of the financial crisis in 2008, public debt began to accumulate rapidly, eventually leading to the European sovereign debt crisis. However, the dramatic increase in government debt is not only happening in European countries. All major G7 countries are experiencing similar developments. What are the implications of this kind of massive deficit and debt policy for the long term stability of these economies? Are there limits in debt-ratios that qualitatively change policy options? While theory can easily illustrate these limits, where are these limits in real economies? This paper examines the relationship between sovereign debt dynamics and capital formation, and accounts for the effects of the 2008 financial crisis on debt sustainability for the four largest advanced economies. We contribute to the literature on fiscal sustainability by framing the problem in an OLG model with government debt, physical capital, endogenous interest rates, and exogenous growth. For the calibration exercise we extract data from the OECD for Germany as a stabilization anchor in Europe, the US, the UK, and Japan for almost two decades before the 2008 crisis. Except for intertemporal preferences, all parameters are drawn or directly derived from the OECD database, or endogenously determined within the model. The results of the calibration exercise are alarming for all four countries under consideration. We identify debt ceilings that indicate a sustainable and unsustainable regime. For 2011 all four economies are either close to, or have already passed the ceiling. The results call for a dramatic readjustment in budget policies for a consolidation period and long-term fiscal rules that make it possible to sustain sufficient capital intensity so that these economies can maintain their high income levels. Current conditions are already starting to restrict policy choices. However, the results also make it very clear that none of these economies would survive a second financial crisis such as the one in 2008.     

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.     

Government fiscal projection and debt sustainability

This paper reconsiders Japan’s fiscal sustainability. We investigate whether a simulation conducted under the political constraint imposed by a fiscal reaction function supports the official projection. First, we obtain Japan’s fiscal reaction function by estimating the response of the primary surpluses to the past debt for a panel data set of 23 OECD countries. Next, we investigate the political feasibility of the official projection using our estimated reaction function. When the Cabinet Office criterion is used for the debt-to-GDP ratio, the government can attain the policy target of nonnegative fiscal surpluses and realize fiscal sustainability. Notably, the negative growth-adjusted bond yield and the high growth rate contribute to this finding.     

What Do OECD Countries Cut First When Faced with Fiscal Adjustments?

Following the present scale of fiscal imbalances in developed countries, significant fiscal consolidation will be inevitable in the coming years. Fiscal discipline will require cuts in government expenditure, leading to trade‐offs between different components of government expenditure. In this article, we explore the relationship between components of government expenditure and government size during the period 1970‐2007 for a sample of 25 developed countries to shed light on how fiscal discipline might influence public spending composition in the coming years. Using the Pooled Mean Group estimation we find that fiscal adjustments protect functions that have both a social and productive character, such as education and health spending. In addition, the most productive spending, that related to transport and communications, is also isolated from budgetary cuts. This result shows evidence of governments reacting to the voter's increasing realization that reducing productive expenditures harms long‐term economic growth by striking a balance between utility and economic‐growth‐enhancing expenditure.     

户籍门槛、发展型政府与人口城镇化政策——基于大中城市面板数据的经验研究

文章从制度变迁视角分析了户籍改革难以突破的原因,在发展主义理念的指引下,如果户籍改革对地方经济增长或财政收支产生负面影响,地方政府可能会拖延或阻碍改革进程。基于大中城市面板数据的实证研究显示,特大城市提高门槛对地方人均产出有正面影响,户籍改革动力最弱。其他城市虽然可以通过降低户籍门槛提高人均产出水平,但率先放开户籍制度可能引发流动人口大量涌入抵消政策效果,地方政府的户籍改革动力随着城市人口规模增长逐步下降。同时,户籍人口增长会带来财政支出的显著增加,为避免户籍化政策对财政支出产生压力,地方政府会通过户籍门槛对流动人口进行筛选,将对财政收入贡献较低或产生明显财政支出的群体排斥在户籍门槛之外。本文认为中国大中城市的户籍制度存在刚性,可以通过收回地方制定落户政策的权力强制推动户籍制度改革,或利用财政政策降低户籍化成本,激励地方政府推动改革。     

Assessing Local Government Debt Risks in China: A Case Study of Local Government Financial Vehicles

Strong credit expansion in China after the recent global financial crisis has brought local government financial vehicles (LGFV) into the spotlight. Rapid growth of LGFV has triggered concern about local government indebtedness, banks' asset quality and, more broadly, China's medium‐term financial stability and sovereign risk. This paper constructs a unique firm‐level dataset to evaluate the country's local government debt. We find an uneven distribution of LGFV, which are concentrated in the coastal areas, and a deterioration of their debt repaying ability from 2010 to 2012. We use principal component analysis (PCA) along with multivariate discriminate analysis (MDA) to identify the credit risk of LGFV based on conventional financial variables as well as local governments' fiscal status. We also estimate the safe boundaries of debt bearing at the provincial government level. The estimations reveal more severe local government debt risks in the middle‐western provinces and higher risks associated with LGFV at the municipal and county levels. Although it is very unlikely that there will be a national debt crisis in China, the high risk of LGFV should be noted and effectively controlled by improving the fiscal transparency of local governments and reforming the fiscal system.     

美国国债危机的根源及出路

虽然美国债务危机还没有爆发,但目前的财政赤字和国债规模过大、财政收支结构的刚性特征均阻碍了其财政赤字状况的改善、美元的国际货币地位也非可以永久持续,这使美国国债的可持续性问题面临挑战。在解决方案上,短期内美国政府可以通过技术性违约或者债务货币化将政府债务延后或者隐性处理,但是其代价是巨大的。因此美国应当从中长期根本上解决债务问题,中期需要建立严格的财政制度;长期上则需要协调好各个产业的发展,寻找新的经济增长点。     

Fiscal sustainability and solvency: theory and recent experience in Indonesia

A major challenge for Indonesian economic policy makers is to avoid the recurrence of conditions that could trigger a new economic crisis. One of the important dimensions of this challenge will be to conduct fiscal policy in a way that is sustainable, given the level of interest rates and the rate of growth of the economy. This paper synthesises various approaches to the measurement of fiscal sustainability that have appeared in the economic literature, relates these measures to the fundamental concept of fiscal solvency, and applies the framework to Indonesia over the period 1991–2003. The domestic and foreign debt positions of the central government are treated separately, to capture the influence of exchange rate changes on the relative costs of domestic and foreign borrowing. The empirical analysis indicates that Indonesia has met the fiscal sustainability criterion in recent years, except when the rupiah has depreciated heavily.     

我国财政可持续性的实证分析：1952—2007

1998年以来,我国连续7年实施积极的财政政策。2008年,为了应对世界金融危机,我国又重启积极的财政政策。积极的财政政策在促进经济增长的同时也使得财政赤字显著增加和国债规模显著扩大,这就不可避免地引起人们对我国财政可持续性的担忧。文章根据政府跨时预算约束理论,利用协整方法对1952—2007年我国财政可持续性的状况进行实证分析。结果显示：从长期来看,1952—2007年,我国的财政是可持续的;从短期来看,1952--1978年、1979—1994年,我国的财政也是可持续的;但1995—2007年,我国的财政收支之间不存在协整关系,财政赤字政策不可持续。     

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     

Twenty-year review of South African fiscal policy: A tale of two sustainabilities

In 2014 democracy in South Africa was 20 years old. The democratic government in 1994 inherited both a high and increasing public debt/gross domestic product ratio and significant development backlogs. The government had to establish fiscal sustainability, yet also pursue development in a sustainable way. This article explores the government's performance in reconciling fiscal sustainability with sustainable development. The article shows that fiscal policy has been sustainable over the 20 years, with some risks appearing towards the end, and that the government pursued sustainable development through reallocating resources within the budget and by spending more in real terms. Three phases can be identified: 1994–2000, 2001–08 and 2009–13. However, poor service delivery and low levels of government investment during the 20 years threaten to undermine economic growth. Lower growth consequently threatens the sustainability of both fiscal policy and development, which, in turn, again undermines growth prospects. Hence, the article also identifies key future challenges.     

China's Nonfinancial Corporate Debt Dynamics

Since the global financial crisis broke out in 2008, China's nonfinancial corporate debt has been rising steadily and rapidly, posing serious threat to China's financial stability. China's rising corporate debt is mainly attributable to three factors: worsening capital efficiency, worsening corporate profitability and high funding costs. Based on a dynamic recursive model developed in the paper, we simulate the trajectories of China's corporate debt‐to‐GDP ratio, and find that if China fails to reverse the current trends in capital efficiency, corporate profitability and financing costs, China's nonfinancial corporate debt‐to‐GDP ratio will continue to rise without converging to a limit. Against most economists' intuition, given the current trends of changes in parameters, higher economic growth will not help China to escape the corporate debt trap. On the contrary, it will make China's corporate debt problem even worse. To avert a corporate debt crisis, China needs to speed up the structural reform and change the growth paradigm so as to enhance capital efficiency and firms' profitability, while reducing firms' financing costs.