Intergovernmental transfers and procyclical public spending

This paper tests the predictions that (i) sub-central government expenditures are procyclical and (ii) sub-central government expenditures are likely to be more procyclical than central government spending. The predictions are based on the importance of ‘voracity effects’ and on the proposition that they are systematically more pervasive if spending is financed by intergovernmental transfers. Evidence from 23 OECD countries between 1995 and 2006 indicates that sub-central government spending is more procyclical than central government expenditure.     

Rent-seeking distortions and fiscal procyclicality

Recent research has demonstrated that while government expenditures are countercyclical in most industrialized countries, they tend to be procyclical in developing countries. We develop a dynamic political-economy model to explain this phenomenon. In the model, public expenditures provide insurance to uninsured households, and optimal fiscal policy is countercyclical. The introduction of a political friction, in which successive governments disagree on the desired distribution of public spending, can lead to procyclical fiscal policies. Numerical simulations of the model allow us to compare quantitatively the relative role of common explanations for fiscal procyclicality. We conclude that political distortions in the fiscal process can explain fiscal procyclicality better than other common explanations, such as borrowing constraints and macroeconomic volatility.     

Tax base variability and procyclical fiscal policy in developing countries

Based on a sample of 56 countries, we show that fiscal policy in the G7 countries appears to be acyclical while fiscal policy in developing countries is procyclical (i.e., fiscal policy is expansionary in good times and contractionary in bad times). To explain this puzzle, we develop an optimal fiscal policy model in which running budget surpluses is costly because they create pressures to increase public spending. Given this distortion, a government that faces large fluctuations in the tax base–as is the case for developing countries–will find it optimal to run a procyclical fiscal policy.     

On the Cyclicality of Public Finances in Europe

Under EMU, monetary policy is oriented toward the euro area as a whole and fiscal policy is an important instrument remaining in the hands of national governments to cushion economic shocks to individual countries. The current paper analyses the cyclical pattern of public finances in Europe and addresses the question of whether fiscal policies have been geared towards this stabilising role. Although taxes fluctuate countercyclically in a conventional manner, we find that discretionary measures have tended to undermine automatic stabilisers. On the expenditure side, we find that public investment also displays a consistent procyclical pattern. Dynamic analysis reveals that a permanent shock to output induces asynchronous fluctuations in taxes and expenditures in the year of the shock and in periods thereafter. Finally, we examine political and institutional factors. The political fragmentation of the government as well as the partisan hue of the government do not interfere with the cyclical response of public finances, but we do find evidence of a pronounced electoral cycle.     

Public spending, voracity, and Wagner's law in developing countries

An examination of the short- and long-term relation between government spending and output in 51 developing countries reveals evidence consistent with cyclical ratcheting and voracity reflected in a tendency for government spending to increase over time. The main components of government spending are procyclical in some 40% of countries. Output and government spending are cointegrated for at least one of the spending aggregates in 70% of countries, implying a long-term relationship between government spending and output consistent with Wagner's law. In contrast, prior studies have found only weak support for Wagner's law for developing countries, although somewhat stronger support for industrial countries.     

INTERNATIONAL CAPITAL FLOWS: PRIVATE VERSUS PUBLIC FLOWS IN DEVELOPING AND DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Empirically, net capital inflows are procyclical in developed countries and countercyclical in developing countries. Private inflows are procyclical and public inflows are countercyclical in both groups of countries. The dominance of private (public) inflows in developed (developing) countries drives the difference in net inflows. We rationalize these patterns using a two-sector model of a small open economy facing borrowing constraints. Private agents overborrow because of the pecuniary externality arising from these constraints. The government saves to reduce aggregate debt, making the economy resilient to adverse shocks. Differences in borrowing constraints and shock processes across countries explain the empirical patterns of capital inflows.     

Fiscal Illusion and Cyclical Government Expenditure: State Government Expenditure in the United States

A well‐established literature argues that fiscal illusion increases the level of government expenditure. This article focuses on the proposition that fiscal illusion also influences the cyclicality of government expenditure. Predictions are formed with reference to government reliance on high income elasticities of indirect tax revenues and on intergovernmental transfers. Predictions are tested with reference to the expenditures of 36 states in the United States from 1980 to 2000. Government expenditures are more likely to be procyclical when citizens systematically underestimate the cost of taxation.     

EFFECT OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURES ON INCOME DISTRIBUTION WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO VENEZUELA

Taxes as well as government expenditures tend to transform income distribution; the higher they are in relation to GDP, the higher their potential influence appears. It is easier to trace the incidence of taxes than that of expenditures and studies of effects of expenditures on income distribution are not frequent. Changes of fiscal legislation and deficiencies in reporting systems and statistics frequently found in developing countries complicate the task still further.
An investigation of this type in a developing country has to face a poorly developed data base and take advantage of different and dispersed sources of information.
This paper presents the methodology used for estimating the influence of government expenditures a n income distribution in the case of Venezuela. Although the incidence of fiscal activities on income distribution in Venezuela might not necessarily be the same as in other countries, Venezuelan sources of information are not very different from those existing in other countries of similar level of economic and statistical development and procedures used could appropriately be adapted to other countries.     

Does higher government debt link to higher social expenditure? New method,new evidence

Scholars believe that higher social expenditures are usually linked with higher government debts, whereas higher debts reduce social expenditures. However, it is reasonable to speculate that higher government debt may contribute to higher social spending, while fiscal deficits occur during a recession, which commonly creates greater demand for social expenditure. For a deeper investigation, this paper revisits the dynamic relationship between social spending and public debts in the time-frequency domain, using the novel wavelet-coherency analysis as well as the phase-difference technique to derive the co-moved and causal relationships between social spending and public debts in 13 OECD countries. The evidence identifies a dynamic relationship between variables. While higher social expenditures increase government debts, the shocks from government debts to social expenditures are conversely uncertain. We discover that higher government debt does reduce social expenditures, but it may be linked to higher social spending. The robustness of partial coherency and phase-difference discovers the role of a political party in the decision over social welfare programmes in the sample countries.     

Fiscal policy asymmetries and the sustainability of US government debt revisited

This paper empirically investigates US fiscal policy sustainability and cyclicality in an empirical structure that allows fiscal policy responses to exhibit asymmetric behavior. We investigate this over two quarterly intervals, both of which begin in 1955:1. The short sample ends in 1995:2 and is most similar to the one used by Bohn (Q J Econ 113:949–963, 1998), whereas the full sample ends in 2013:3. Our estimation results show that the full sample period is sufficiently different from the short sample period, that the asymmetric (nonlinear) empirical models used in this paper are important and that the sustainability of US government debt topic needed to be revisited. Indeed, the short sample provides evidence of fiscal policy sustainability in line with Bohn’s (1998) findings. However, when considering the full sample, US fiscal policy is found sustainable during good economic times only according to the best fitting nonlinear model, but unsustainable for all specifications studied during times of distress. With regard to cyclicality, both samples show policy is asymmetric. Moreover, both samples show countercyclical policy during times of distress and the full sample results show some evidence that policy may be procyclical during good economic times.     

Procyclical government spending: Patterns of pressure and prudence in the OECD

This paper tests for differences in the cyclicality of government spending across functional categories. Evidence from 20 OECD countries suggests that procyclicality is more likely in smaller functional budgets, but capital spending is more likely to be procyclical for the larger spending categories.     

HAS EUROPEAN ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AFFECTED THE FUNCTIONAL COMPOSITION OF GOVERNMENT EXPENDITURES?

Globalization and growth-maximizing governments may cause countries to converge toward a similar composition of government expenditures. These convergent forces may be even more intensive in the case of EU member states engaged in the European integration process. The results obtained, through calculation of a constructed dissimilarity index and by adapting the usual indicators of convergence (β, σ, and γ), reveal that there has been a harmonization process. In addition, this approximation of the structures of government expenditures has been greater in the EU than in the non-EU countries of the OECD. Nevertheless, EU member states are converging toward a different steady-state composition of government expenditures. (JEL H11, H50, H60 )     

HYPERBOLIC DISCOUNTING,PUBLIC DEBT AND BALANCED BUDGET RULES

This paper considers a government that chooses its tax and borrowing policy in order to minimize the present value of the excess burden caused by taxation. In doing so, the government uses hyperbolic discounting. It turns out that public deficits are positive even if public expenditures are constant over time. With cyclical expenditures, the government chooses an asymmetric debt policy, i.e., in bad times it borrows more than it repays in good times. In contrast to tax smoothing and political economy theories of public debt, the welfare effects of a balanced budget rule are ambiguous.     

Current expenditure upswings in good times and public investment downswings in bad times? New evidence from developing countries

Anecdotal evidence suggests that policymakers usually cannot resist the temptation of spending more on current expenditure (e.g., wages, transfers) in good times and mostly pick public investment to adjust during bad times. In this paper, we answer the following questions: do current expenditures and public investment react differently to the business cycle? If so, why? In a sample of more than 100 developing countries and 30 developed countries observed between 1980 and 2014, a new empirical regularity specific to developing countries is identified: upswings are associated with increases in current primary expenditures only, while public investment falls and current spending remains acyclical during downturns. Evidence is also presented that this asymmetrical response is more pronounced in countries where incumbent politicians face shorter time horizons and weak institutions. Other types of determinants traditionally discussed in the literature have limited explanatory power.     

Cyclicality of taxes and external debt

In their work, Vegh and Vuletin have shown that statutory tax rates are acyclical in developed economies and procyclical in developing ones. This article extends their analysis by checking the interaction of statutory tax rates with countries’ external public debt. In general, we found that the value added tax rates are changed procyclically in both developed and developing countries (i.e. taxes are raised in bad times and reduced in good times). However, when the external debt is high, in the developing countries the procyclicality increases, while the opposite result holds for developed economies. This pattern occurs mainly in times of recession, when the need for loans is the highest. Although we found that there was a reduction in procyclicality after the 2000s, these findings pose a challenge to policy-makers, who should think of ways of dealing with lack of foreign funds in difficult times.     

Macroeconomic changes and mortality in Mexico

While previous studies examine how the business cycle affects mortality in developed countries, less is known about this relationship in developing countries. In this paper, we investigate whether the procyclical nature of mortality in developed countries found by Ruhm (Q J Econ 115(2):617–650, 2000) and others is also present in Mexico. We assemble a unique panel data set that contains state-level data on mortality rates by age and cause of death, GDP per capita, and socioeconomic status. We find that for Mexico total mortality rates are procyclical, with the largest impact on those aged 20–49. While these findings are similar to those in Ruhm (Q J Econ 115(2):617–650, 2000), the effects of business cycles on mortality rates differ for several specific causes of death. These results suggest that whereas total mortality may be procyclical in both developed and developing countries, significant differences may exist for some causes of death.     

The political economy of fiscal procyclicality

It is well-recognized that fiscal spending in developing countries tends to display significant procyclicality (increased spending during expansions and vice versa), in contravention of rational stabilization policy. Theoretical explanations have relied on either financial access or political-economic factors to justify this phenomenon. In this paper, we model the fiscal-output relationship as a dcc-garch process, and inquire whether debt or political economy constraints play a comparatively more important role in conditioning this correlation. Our evidence favors a positive effect from political economy, with weaker and more mixed results pertaining to financial access. Somewhat surprisingly, we also find that politics-induced procyclicality appears to be driven by advanced economies, and fiscal rules exacerbate procyclical tendencies.     

Terms of trade volatility,government spending cyclicality,and economic growth

This paper presents estimates of the effects that terms of trade volatility has on real gross domestic product (GDP) per capita growth. Based on 5‐year nonoverlapping panel data comprising 175 countries during 1980 to 2010, the paper finds that terms of trade volatility has significant negative effects on economic growth in countries with procyclical government spending. In countries where government spending is countercyclical, terms of trade volatility has no significant effect on growth. Conditional on the mediating role of government spending cyclicality, the GDP share of domestic credit to the private sector has no significant effect on the relationship between growth and terms of trade volatility.     

Macroeconomic stabilization in developing economies: Are optimal policies procyclical?

Many empirical studies provide evidence that macroeconomic policies as well as capital flows exhibit procyclical characteristics in developing economies. In particular Kaminsky et al. [2004. When it rains, it pours: Procyclical capital flows and macroeconomic policies. NBER Macroeconomics Annual, MIT Press] demonstrate that a large group of middle-income countries run contractionary policies and experience capital flight during times of recession. This paper investigates the role of international financial markets in explaining these macroeconomic policy and capital flow characteristics. An optimal fiscal and monetary policy problem is formulated and solved for a small-open economy that faces a country-specific interest rate spread in international financial markets. It is found that, in the presence of the country spread, optimal fiscal and monetary policies as well as capital flows are procyclical under a reasonable parametrization. Optimal policies and capital flows turn countercyclical in the absence of the country spread. This pattern is robust to a range of alternative model specifications.     

Cyclicality of fiscal policy and the shadow economy

A survey of recent literature on cyclical properties of fiscal policy reveals that fiscal policy is procyclical in many developing countries whereas it is countercyclical in developed ones. However, there is no consensus on what drives the difference in this specific cyclical property of fiscal policy. Using cross-section and panel data sets for 78 countries we document that procyclicality of fiscal policy is more pronounced in countries with a larger size of the shadow economy. We also show that policies reducing the size of the shadow economy lead to a less (more) procyclical (countercyclical) fiscal response to shocks.