Fiscal Consolidations and Economic Growth

The aim of this paper is to deepen the understanding of the macroeconomic consequences of fiscal consolidations. In particular, there is evidence in the literature of fiscal consolidation episodes producing (non‐Keynesian) expansionary effects in the short run. We replicate this result for a panel of OECD countries under exogeneity of the fiscal consolidation. However, we provide some evidence that output growth might affect the fiscal tightening process so that fiscal consolidations are not exogenous to economic growth. Once we allow for feedback effects from economic growth to fiscal adjustments, we find that expansionary effects disappear and recover the typical Keynesian effect of fiscal adjustments. This finding points to the need to take these short‐term negative implications into account in the design of fiscal consolidations.     

Fiscal Policy Shocks in the Euro Area and the US: An Empirical Assessment*

We analyse the impact of fiscal policy shocks in the euro area as a whole, using a newly‐available quarterly data set of fiscal variables for the period 1981–2007. To allow for comparability with previous results on euro‐area countries and the US, we use a standard structural vector autoregressive (VAR) framework, and study the impact of aggregated and disaggregated government spending and net‐tax shocks. In addition, to frame euro‐area results, we apply the same methodology for the same sample period to US data. We also explore the sensitivity of the results to the inclusion of variables aiming to control for underlying financial and fiscal conditions. The main new findings are that: expansionary fiscal shocks have a short‐term positive impact on GDP and private consumption, with government spending shocks entailing, in general, higher effects on economic activity than (net) tax reductions; output multipliers to government expenditure shocks are of similar size in the euro area and in the US; the persistence of a fiscal spending shock is higher in the US than in the euro area, which appears to be related to military spending in the US; and fiscal multipliers have increased over the recent past in both geographical areas.     

Fiscal Policy in a Currency Union at the Zero Lower Bound

This paper constructs a two‐country core–periphery New Keynesian model of a currency union to address the interaction between the objectives of regionally directed fiscal policy constrained by a single currency and the aggregate use of fiscal policy in face of the zero lower bound (ZLB) on policy interest rates. We identify an optimal path of aggregate and relative fiscal policy responses to a negative region‐specific demand shock. Our results show that (i) in a monetary union, the optimal policy response to an asymmetric reduction in demand concentrated in the periphery always entails a relative shift of fiscal expenditure toward the worse‐affected regions, (ii) though no aggregate fiscal response is required outside the ZLB, and (iii) optimal union‐wide fiscal policy is expansionary at the ZLB. Therefore, optimal policy always entails an expansion in the periphery at the ZLB, but the optimal fiscal response in the core regions can be either expansionary or contractionary depending on the parameters of the model. However, (iv) fiscal expansion in the core is warranted if the periphery cannot implement an expansion due to constraints on public spending.     

我国财政赤字与经常项目动态关系的实证分析

本文采用Granger因果检验和脉冲反应函数计量技术,对我国财政赤字与经常项目之间的动态关系进行实证检验,结果表明,存在从财政赤字到经常项目的Granger单向因果关系,财政赤字的增加长期内会改善经常项目收支状况.进一步分析表明,财政赤字与经常项目顺差并存是我国改革开放以来特殊政策环境下形成的,并且随着我国宏观调控逐步由扩张性的积极财政政策转向中性财政政策,政府应密切关注财政政策的变化对经常项目的影响.     

两种属性的积极财政政策及其选择

积极的财政政策是一种扩张性的财政政策，但由于政策目标与政策结构的差异，将会形成效率型与稳定型两种属性的积极财政政策，而它们又将从不同的层面影响经济增长与就业增长的关系，进而导致不同的政策效果。1998年以来，我国所实行的效率型积极财政政策在一定程度上加剧了就业的严峻形势。为了扩大就业，促进再就业，保证改革的稳定环境，我国的积极财政政策应由“效率型”转向“稳定为主兼顾效率”的复合型积极财政政策。     

Mergers in India. A Response to Regulatory Shocks

Recent empirical research shows that industry and regulatory shocks play a key role in determining merger activity in developed countries. We use this framework to analyze merger activity in India, using a comprehensive database spanning a thirty-year period, from 1973-74 to 2002-3. At the industry level, we identify clustering of merger activity in India, indicating that mergers may be a response to industry and regulatory shocks. At the firm level, the 1991 amendments to the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices (MRTP) Act, which removed premerger scrutiny, are found to have a positive and significant effect on merger behavior of firms that had been under its purview. After the 1991 amendments, firms underwent mergers that would have been scrutinized by the MRTP Act otherwise. These mergers were undertaken for expansionary reasons.     

The bank loan distribution effect of government spending expansion: Evidence from China

Rather than focusing on the spread of enterprises' bank loans, we focus on the impact of government spending expansion on the amount of bank loans obtained by enterprises. We first build a theoretical model to show that there are the demand effect and loan cost effect of government spending expansion on the bank loans and then use the fixed effects approach to analyze the bank loan distribution effect of government spending expansion by using the data of enterprises listed on the China Stock Exchange between 2003 and 2019. Empirical results show that the demand effect plays a leading role for the central government state-owned enterprises (SOEs), helping them obtain more bank loans from banks. In contrast, for private enterprises, the loan cost effect plays a leading role, hurting them in obtaining bank loans from banks. Further research shows that government spending expansion's crowding-in or crowding-out effect differs from Neoclassicism and (new) Keynesianism. This paper provides a new explanation for why the financing problem of private enterprises is getting worse in China. The policy implication is that when the government implements expansionary fiscal policies, it should also provide convenience for private enterprise financing through window guidance to prevent the expansionary fiscal policies from crowding out private enterprise bank loans.     

Economic costs of alternative monetary policy responses to speculative currency attacks

The outcome of a speculative attack on the foreign exchange rate can be classified into three cases: (i) immediate depreciation of the nominal exchange rate, (ii) successful defense, or (iii) failed defense. This paper explores which of these outcomes yields the lowest cost in terms of output and unemployment in the short and medium run. Ex-ante the outcome of a speculative attack is uncertain, therefore the appropriate response of monetary authorities to a speculative attack depends on the cost of an immediate depreciation compared with that of the expected outcome of a currency defense. Our empirical analysis focuses on a sample of 73 emerging and developing countries over the 1960–2011 period. Our results indicate that an immediate depreciation is the policy response that is associated with a lower expected output loss and unemployment in the short run and it tends to be expansionary in the medium run. A defense, if successful, entails insignificant costs in the short run but, unlike an immediate depreciation, a successful defense is not expansionary in the medium run. If a defense fails, large output losses and an increase in unemployment ensue, at least in the short run.     

A Money-Financed Fiscal Stimulus: Redistribution and Social Welfare

We analyze the redistribution channel of a money-financed fiscal stimulus (MFFS) versus debt-financed fiscal stimulus (DFFS) in a Borrower–Saver framework. The redistribution channel is larger when we consider an MFFS and borrowers are the main beneficiaries. A liquidity trap scenario amplifies the differences between an MFFS and a DFFS. The redistribution channel makes an MFFS effective at having an expansionary effect in the medium run, despite the adverse scenario. We show, however, that an MFFS increases the consumption gap between the two agents by redistributing income from savers to borrowers. Thus, an MFFS results detrimental for welfare when the welfare function is approximated around the efficient steady state.     

International Differences in Fiscal Outcomes during the Global Crisis

We examine the cross‐country dispersion in fiscal outcomes during 2008–09. Controlling for output, we find that the declines in the overall and structural fiscal balances were larger for those countries experiencing larger increases in unemployment and where credit growth during the pre‐crisis period was more rapid. However, controlling for output and unemployment, there is no systematic covariation between fiscal outcomes and a wider range of initial conditions and country characteristics that have been cited as possible drivers of fiscal outcomes during this episode.     

Fiscal Fan Charts: A Tool for Assessing Member States' (Likely?) Compliance with EU Fiscal Rules

This paper sets out a methodology for constructing fan charts for the government deficit and debt ratios over the medium term. It relies on information contained in Stability/Convergence Programme Updates, a model of the relevant stochastic process (for example, that of real GDP) or processes, and a parameter estimate of the sensitivity of the primary budget balance to the output gap for the member state under consideration. A model of the dynamic deficit–debt relationship allows the impact of random output growth to work its way through the fiscal arithmetic in a consistent and traceable way to produce fan charts over a five‐year forecast horizon. The initial set of fiscal fan charts included here for Ireland use the indicative public finance projections set out in its 2011 Update. The methodology makes the standard assumption of no fiscal policy response to any change in the budgetary position over the period such as could arise from changes in growth rates. Governments will, however, generally be in a position to adjust fiscal policy towards meeting a specific target, such as the 3 per cent Maastricht Treaty deficit target. A second set of fan charts is included that indicates how the probabilistic range of fiscal outcomes could be affected by a tightening of fiscal policy in 2013–15.     

Fiscal shocks and real exchange rate dynamics: Some evidence for Latin America

This paper analyses the effects of fiscal shocks in selected Latin American countries using a two-country model for output, labour input, government spending and relative prices. Dynamic simulation techniques are then applied, in particular to shed light on the possible effects of fiscal imbalances on the real exchange rate. Using quarterly data over the period 1980-2006, we find that in a majority of cases fiscal shocks are the main driving force of real exchange rate fluctuations.     

A Structural VAR (SVAR) analysis of fiscal shocks on current accounts in India

The stimulus packages announced to deal with the economic slowdown has increased the fiscal deficit of many countries and it spurred the debate on the possible effect of these fiscal shocks on other economic variable especially the current account. In this study, we examine the effect of fiscal deficit on current account of India using the VAR as well as the Structural VAR (SVAR) analysis. Our analysis indicates that the fiscal deficit is positively affecting the current account deficit in India, as predicted by the twin deficit hypothesis. Therefore, the historical data indicates the presence of the twin deficits phenomenon in Indian context.     

The Sustainability of Indian Fiscal Policy: A Reassessment of the Empirical Evidence

This paper reassesses the sustainability of fiscal policy in India from 1950 to 2010. Overall, the evidence broadly supports the hypothesis that the fiscal policy is "weakly" sustainable and documents a higher speed of adjustment to the intertemporal budget constraint than earlier papers do. Notwithstanding this improvement in the fiscal outlook, the author suggests that India should pursue a policy of fiscal consolidation in the years ahead, both because the ratio of public debt to the gross domestic product is still high compared to other emerging market countries and because "weak" fiscal solvency implies potential adverse consequences on the management of public debt.     

The effects of foreign disturbances under flexible exchange rates

Foreign fiscal expansion has a contractionary, and monetary expansion an expansionary, effect on the small economy in the real wage model. The reverse conclusions hold in the money wage model only if the income elasticity of the demand for money is one or greater. The same results hold also for the stationay state effects. This theory provides an explanation—in the policy mix of the United States—for the recent lacklustre performance of Europe. Under rational expectations, foreign monetary expansion leads to an overshooting appreciation, fiscal expansion leading to several possible exchange rate responses. The new results are produced by consistently specified money demand and import functions, the supply side, and the wealth effect.     

The Government Spending Multiplier in Turkey

This study aims to measure the size of the government spending multiplier in Turkey for post-2001 financial crisis period within a structural VAR framework. The analysis demonstrates that a positive shock to government spending tends to increase output, tax, and real interest rate on impact and the size of the fiscal multiplier is relatively large at first few quarters. The fiscal multiplier reaches a peak value of 1.5 at second quarter and then starts to diminish. Furthermore, investigating the effects of the components of government spending reveals the fact that government investment expenditures, rather than consumption expenditures, have a profound impact on output at first few quarters.     

我国国债政策的走向分析

国债是市场经济国家实施宏观调控不可或缺的政策工具,在现代经济发展中发挥着越来越重要的作用.在以增债和扩支为主要内容的积极财政政策逐步稳健后,作为其主力军的国债政策也应适时调整.应该逐步减少建设国债的发行,调整建设国债的投资方向;调整国债发行结构和持有者结构,创新品种;并且要加快财政支出体制改革,逐步减少财政赤字;同时还要注意国债政策与其它政策的配合使用.     

Central-local government fiscal relations and cyclicality of public spending: evidence from China

In this study, we analyze how fiscal decentralization affects the cyclicality of government spending. We focus on China, which experienced fiscal decentralization during 1979–1993 and then partly centralized its revenue with the 1994 fiscal reform. By employing both time series and province-level panel data, we show that Chinese provincial and total government spending was strongly procyclical during the decentralization period before the reform, but both became significantly less procyclical with respect to nationwide output fluctuations after the reform. We suggest several channels through which the procyclicality of subnational government spending in decentralized fiscal federations could be restrained. We further find that less procyclical provincial government spending is associated with smaller output volatility.     

Monetary versus fiscal policy in India: an SVAR analysis

Conventionally, the policymakers relied on three policy alternatives to manage business cycles – debt-financed government spending, debt-financed tax rebate and interest rate. While the first two are fiscal policy instruments, the latter is a monetary policy instrument. This paper aims to capture interactions among Indian monetary and fiscal policy actions, and the impact of such policy actions on select macroeconomic variables for the period 1990Q1–2011Q4. The policy actions are identified using the sign restrictions approach combined with magnitude restrictions in a Structural Vector Autoregression framework, and interpreted using impulse responses and variance decomposition. The results show that Indian monetary policy responds to tax rebate shocks and spending shocks differently. In the case of a tax rebate shock, Indian monetary policy responds by reducing interest rates thereby accommodating fiscal expansion. On the opposite, monetary policy seems not to accommodate expenditure shocks. Interestingly, the monetary policy shock is accompanied by a fiscal expansion that threatens the credibility of the central bank actions, thus indicating fiscal policy dominance. A comparison of the efficacy of the policies suggests that the interest rate is more effective in stimulating output. Out of the two fiscal policy instruments analysed, the tax rebate seems to be the better option for stimulating output considering the output-debt trade-off.     

Fiscal policy and external adjustment: New evidence

Relatively little empirical evidence exists about countries' external adjustment to changes in fiscal policy and, in particular, to changes in taxes. This paper addresses this question by measuring the effects of tax and government spending shocks on the current account and the real exchange rate in a sample of four industrialized countries. Our analysis is based on a structural vector autoregression in which the interaction of fiscal variables and macroeconomic aggregates is left unrestricted. Identification is instead achieved by exploiting the conditional heteroscedasticity of the structural disturbances. Three main findings emerge: (i) the data provide little support for the twin-deficit hypothesis, (ii) the estimated effects of unexpected tax cuts are generally inconsistent with the predictions of standard economic models, except for the US, and (iii) the puzzling real depreciation triggered by an expansionary public spending shock is substantially larger in magnitude than predicted by traditional identification approaches.