Are stationarity and cointegration restrictions really necessary for the intertemporal budget constraint?

Time series related to fiscal and external deficits are commonly subjected to stationarity and cointegration tests to assess if the deficits are sustainable. Such tests are incapable of rejecting sustainability. The intertemporal budget constraint proves to be satisfied if either the debt series or the revenue and with-interest spending series are integrated of arbitrarily high order, i.e., stationary after differencing arbitrarily often. Revenues and spending do not have to be cointegrated. Rejections of low-order difference-stationarity and of cointegration are thus consistent with the intertemporal budget constraint. Error-correction-type policy reaction functions are suggested as more promising for understanding deficit problems.     

International evidence on fiscal solvency: Is fiscal policy “responsible”?

We conduct a cross-country empirical analysis of fiscal solvency based on dynamic stochastic general equilibrium conditions. The results show evidence of fiscal solvency, in the form of a robust positive conditional response of the primary balance to changes in public debt, in panels for emerging and industrial economies and in a combined panel. Emerging economies show a stronger response and hence converge to lower mean debt-output ratios, as observed in the data. The results are weaker for countries with debt ratios exceeding panel means and medians. Hence, we can separate countries where fiscal solvency holds from those where it remains in doubt.     

Dynamic fiscal policies and unemployment in a simple endogenous growth model

This paper analyzes the growth and employment effects of dynamic fiscal policies in an overlapping generations model with endogenous growth and imperfect labour markets. With balanced-budget policies, the modelled closed economy grows at a constant rate which is higher, the lower are the labour tax rate and the unemployment rate. Constant-flow budget policies are not feasible, while government Ponzi games are feasible only if economic agents have implausibly high savings rates. Furthermore, while constant-stock fiscal policies are sustainable, an increase in the debt-to-capital ratio is accompanied by higher taxes, a rise in unemployment and lower economic growth. JEL Classification E24 · J51 · H63 · O41     

The effectiveness of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policy: Comparative evidence from crisis and non-crisis Euro-area countries

During the European financial crisis, the European Central Bank implemented a series of unconventional monetary policy measures. We argue that these programs lowered the bond yield spreads of Euro-area countries. This hypothesis is tested using pooled OLS estimations and two different datasets: monetary policy event dummies and the purchase volumes of the Securities Markets Programme (SMP). Overall, we find significantly negative effects on bond yield spreads for both datasets, leading us to accept the hypothesis. While the OMT reduces the spreads of both crisis and non-crisis countries, LTROs and the lowering of the deposit rate to 0 percent are mainly effective in non-crisis countries. The SMP lowers the spreads of crisis countries, but it has the opposite effect on non-crisis countries. This converse effect is explained by the risk that increasingly accumulates on the ECB’s balance sheet through the SMP and that way constitutes a fiscal risk for non-crisis countries. The results are confirmed by pooled OLS estimations that measure the effect of unconventional monetary policy on central government debt.     

李嘉图等价定理的理论回顾和实证研究

1998年以来，我国政府实施了积极的财政政策。这种通过增发国债增加政府支出的积极财政政策能否有效地扩大总需求，即财政政策是否有效，不仅是宏观经济理论的一个核心问题，也是我国今后很长时期内制定宏观经济政策时必须考虑的问题。本文主要对李嘉图等价定理进行回顾性理论分析，并在理论上论证该定理站不住脚，最后通过计量经济分析证明该定理不适用于我国。本文的结论是：税收和国债在我国并非等价，通过增发国债增加政府支出的积极财政政策是有效的。     

财政竞争视角下的地方政府债务研究

基于财政竞争视角,从理论与实证两方面分析同级政府之间的财政竞争行为对地方政府债务规模的影响.研究结果表明:为了吸引资源要素流入,促进本地区经济增长,地方政府在制定相应政策时,往往会考虑其他地区政府的策略选择,利用财政手段展开竞争,从而导致债务规模膨胀.基于此,应从完善现行政绩评估机制、合理界定各级政府间事权与支出责任、加强地方政府责任意识、建立健全债务风险预警等方面着手努力.     

没有必要对中国的“高”债务水平担忧

本文针对中国的债务水平做出评价,认为目前中国的债务水平较之发达国家并不算高,在对中国政府债务水平进行测算后,通过对政府的偿债能力、偿债渠道、偿债风险的分析表明,中国政府的债务水平仍在可控区间。     

A modern history of fiscal prudence and profligacy

Drawing on a newly collected historical dataset of fiscal stocks and flows, we analyze the determinants of variation, both across countries and over time, in how fiscal policy responds to increases in the government debt-to-GDP ratio. The fiscal data comprise revenues, primary expenditures, interest bill, and government debt for 55 countries for up to two hundred years. The policy response (increase in the primary fiscal balance in response to debt increases) is found to be significantly weaker when sovereign borrowing costs are low, inflation is high, and potential economic growth worsens unexpectedly. These results are robust to political factors.     

人口结构、财政支出刚性对地方政府性债务的影响——基于中国省级面板数据的研究

根据2012年各省级政府地方政府债务数据和1995~2013年省级层面地方政府债务水平的面板数据,运用固定效应模型、差分 GMM 和系统 GMM 模型,考量人口流出比例、老年人口抚养比、财政支出刚性对地方政府债务增长的影响。结果表明：人口流出比例越高、老年人口抚养比越高,财政支出刚性越高,地方政府负债率越高。鉴此,应严格政府举债程序,改变以户籍为导向的财政转移支付政策,理顺各级政府之间的财税关系。     

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.     

International business cycles with domestic and foreign lenders

We examine the international transmission of business cycles in a two-country model where credit contracts are imperfectly enforceable. In our economy, foreign lenders differ from domestic lenders in their ability to recover value from borrowers’ assets and, therefore, to protect themselves against contractual non-enforceability. The relative importance of domestic and foreign credit frictions changes over the cycle. This induces entrepreneurs to adjust their debt exposure and allocation of collateral between domestic and foreign lenders in response to exogenous productivity shocks. We show that such a model can explain the comovement of output across countries.     

Macroeconomic Effects of Government Spending: The Great Recession was (Really) Different

We estimate the effect of government spending shocks on the U.S. economy with a time‐varying parameter vector autoregression. The recent Great Recession period appears to be characterized by uniquely large impulse responses of output to fiscal shocks. Moreover, the particularity of this period is underlined by highly unusual responses of several other variables. The pattern of fiscal shock responses neither completely fits the predictions of the New Keynesian model of an economy subject to the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates, nor does it suggest regular variation of fiscal policy effects depending on the state of the business cycle. Rather, the Great Recession period seems special in that government spending shocks had a strongly negative effect on the spread between corporate and government bond yields and a strongly positive effect on consumer confidence and private consumption spending.     

Sovereign Defaults,Credit to the Private Sector,and Domestic Credit Market Institutions

Sovereign defaults are associated with declines in foreign and domestic credit to the domestic private sector. This paper analyzes theoretically whether sovereign defaults can lead to this decline, even if domestic agents do not hold sovereign debt. It also studies whether the quality of domestic financial institutions affect the magnitude of this effect. In order to address these issues, the paper embeds the traditional sovereign borrower/foreign creditors relationship of the sovereign debt literature in a macromodel where widespread individual financial constraints limit a country's ability to reallocate resources. The paper finds that sovereign defaults can indeed generate a decline in foreign and domestic credit even if domestic agents do not hold sovereign debt, and that stronger domestic financial institutions can amplify this effect. These findings constitute a new step toward understanding the costs of sovereign defaults.     

Exchange Rate Policy and Sovereign Bond Spreads in Developing Countries

This paper analyzes how exchange rate policy affects the issuance and pricing of sovereign bonds for developing countries. We find that countries with less flexible exchange rate regimes pay higher spreads and are less likely to issue bonds. Changing a free‐floating regime to a fixed regime decreases the likelihood of bond issuance by 5.5% and increases the spread by 88 basis points on average. Countries with real overvaluation have higher spreads and higher bond issuance probabilities. The effects of real overvaluation on sovereign bonds tend to be magnified for countries with fixed exchange rate regimes.