The government revenue and government expenditure nexus: empirical evidence from nine Asian countries

The nexus between government revenue and government expenditure has been an important topic in public economics. In this paper, we investigate evidence for cointegration and causality between government revenue and government expenditure for nine Asian countries. We use the recently developed bounds testing approach to cointegration and the conventional F-test to examine Granger causality. Our empirical results suggest that for three out of the nine countries government revenue and government expenditure are cointegrated. Our results on the direction of causation are mixed: (a) for Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka in the short-run and for Nepal in both the short- and long-run we find support for the tax-and-spend hypothesis; (b) Indonesia and Sri Lanka are in conformity with the spend-and-tax hypothesis in the long-run; and (c) for other countries there is evidence of neutrality.     

THE REVENUE-EXPENDITURE NEXUS: HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR SOUTH AFRICA

Results from unit root and cointegration tests suggest that, allowing for structural breaks, government revenue and expenditure in South Africa during 1895‐2005 were I(1) series and cointegrated. Results from Granger‐type causality tests suggest that a bidirectional Granger‐causal relation existed between revenue and expenditure for the full sample period and for sub‐periods up to the 1960s, consistent with the so‐called “fiscal synchronisation hypothesis”. However, in the 1960s the causal relation appears to have shifted to run from expenditure to taxation, consistent with Peacock and Wiseman's “displacement effect”. In the context of the recent fiscal consolidation literature, the South African fiscal experience would appear to be generally consistent with either revenue‐ or expenditure‐led fiscal consolidation efforts, but with the more recent evidence favoring expenditure‐led consolidations.     

Government revenue, expenditure, and national income: A granger causal analysis of the case of Taiwan

An understanding of the causalities among government receipts, outlays and national income in developing countries may shed some light on the type of government finance favorable to economic prosperity. However, there is no consensus in theories and empirical studies about the causal order among the three variables. This study evaluates their causal relationships in Taiwan within a framework of trivariate autoregression model. We find that there are feedbacks between GNP and government expenditure, on the one hand, and between government revenue and GNP, on the other hand. But there is only a one-way causality running from government revenue to government expenditure. The two bidirectional causalities seem to fit the expectation of fiscal activism. However, the causal flow from government revenue to expenditure indicates the constraint of the former on the latter. Therefore, we call this general causal pattern among the three variables in Taiwan as “constrained fiscal activism.”     

WAGNER'S LAW: AN ECONOMETRIC TEST FOR SOUTH AFRICA, 1960‐2006

The main objective for this paper is to test Wagner's law by analysing the causal relationships between real government expenditure and real income for South Africa for the period 1960‐2006. The paper tests the long‐run relationship between the two variables using the autoregressive distributive lag approach to cointegration suggested by Pesaran et al. We use the Granger non‐causality test procedure developed by Toda and Yamamoto, which uses a vector autoregression model to test for the causal link between the two. Evidence of cointegration is sufficient to establish a long‐run relationship between government expenditure and income. However, support for Wagner's law would require unidirectional causality from income to government expenditure. Therefore, cointegration should be seen as a necessary condition for Wagner's law, but not sufficient. This research does find a long‐run relationship between real per capita government expenditure and real per capita income. Results for the short‐run causality find bidirectional causality. On the basis of empirical results in this paper, one may tentatively conclude that Wagner's law finds no support in South Africa.     

Untangling the web of causalities among four disaggregate government expenditures,government revenue and output in Taiwan

Using Taiwan data, this empirical study delves into the causal links among four disaggregate real government expenditures, real government revenue and real output. The results substantiate that there is (i) neutrality between real government revenue and real government expenditure on economic development; (ii) unidirectional causality from real government revenue to real government expenditures on national defence, on general administration and on education, science and culture, confirming the tax-and-spend hypothesis; (iii) neutrality between output and the four disaggregate government expenditures; and (iv) unidirectional causality from real output to real government revenue. Several implications emerge from our empirical results.     

WAGNER'S LAW REVISITED: A NOTE FROM SOUTH AFRICA

The aim of this note is to reassess the validity of Wagner's law for South Africa for the period 1950‐2007 using cointegration and causality tests. The evidence shows causality running from income to government expenditure, thus supporting the Wagnerian proposition of an expanding public sector. Using five different long‐run estimators, we found that the size of South Africa's public sector was positively and significantly related to South Africa's national income. The elasticity ranges from 1.12 to 1.57, implying that a 1% increase in income leads to a 1.12‐1.57% increase in government expenditure.     

Public expenditure and revenue in China,1990-2009

This study examines the long-ran equilibrium relationship between government expenditure and government revenue in China from 1990 to2009, using co-integration techniques. Meanwhile, it examines the direction of causality relationship between the variables through Granger causalitytest. Empirical findings show that there is a long run equilibrium relationship between govenunent exponditure and revenue. Granger causality test indi-cate there is no hi-directional causal relationship between the two variables.     

Public Revenue‐Expenditure Nexus in South Africa: Are there Asymmetries?

This paper re‐examines the government revenue and expenditure relationship in South Africa using Enders and Siklos' Threshold adjustment and Granger causality tests. The paper allows for structural breaks in the unit root and cointegration tests. The results indicate the absence of any asymmetries in both the threshold autoregression and momentum threshold autoregression specifications of adjustments in the South African's budgeting process. The estimated symmetric error‐correction models provide support for the fiscal synchronization hypothesis of government revenues and expenditures for long‐run and short‐run dynamic equilibrium. These findings indicate that the South African fiscal authorities should try to maintain or even improve the control of their fiscal policy instruments to sustain the prudent budgetary process.     

Fiscal disequilibrium in developing countries

Fiscal equilibrium necessitates that ‘permanent’ government expenditures be covered by ‘permanent’ government revenues. The concept of ‘permanent’ goverment expenditures and revenues takes into account future revenue from capital investments as well as temporary windfalls. Hence, equilibrium may exist despite temporary imbalance between revenue and expenditure. The causes of disequilibrium can be classified into five categories: export boom; price-inelastic tax system; public enterprise performance; increased expenditure produced by political exigencies or administrative weaknesses; and worsening terms of trade. In practice, unrealistic customs valuations, specific as opposed to ad valorem taxes and administrative difficulties have been the most common sources of declining government revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product. Increased subsidies both to consumer goods and to public enterprises as well as inadequate control mechanisms have been the most frequent causes of rising government expenditure.     

FISCAL ILLUSION AT THE LOCAL SPHERE: AN EMPIRICAL TEST OF THE FLYPAPER EFFECT USING SOUTH AFRICAN MUNICIPAL DATA1

While South Africa operates a relatively decentralised governance and administrative structure, an important feature of the country's intergovernmental fiscal relations system is the gap that exists between the expenditure responsibilities of sub‐national authorities and their assigned revenue bases. The resulting vertical fiscal imbalance is mainly addressed via significant intergovernmental transfers to provinces and local governments. This factor presents strong a priori grounds for assuming that in the South African context, the heavy dependence of many local governments on intergovernmental transfers may generate fiscal illusion. Despite this, there have not been many empirical studies of fiscal illusion in South Africa's intergovernmental transfer system. This paper extends existing literature on fiscal illusion by using the fiscal year 2005/06 financial and expenditure data from 237 local government authorities in South Africa to evaluate the flypaper variant of the fiscal illusion hypothesis. Empirical results indicate that the marginal effects of municipal own‐source revenues on local expenditure exceed those of intergovernmental transfers. No statistical evidence in support of the flypaper hypothesis within the context of municipal expenditures in South Africa is found.     

Has Fiscal Federalism Worked for Macroeconomic Purposes？ The Chinese Experience 1994-2003

China＇s central government undertook major tax regime reform in 1994 that was characterized by fiscal federalism. In hindsight, this reform might be viewed as being more emphatic towards the revenue side than the expenditure side. The reform has resulted in certain success both for revenue shifting and inflation fighting purposes. However, the reform and its subsequent follow-ups have not addressed some fundamental issues pertaining to China＇s government finance system, such as the overhauling of the function of government finance and redrawing lines between the central and regional governments with regard to their fiscal responsibilities and duties. Moreover, fiscal federalism might have actually increased fiscal burden on the economy, especially on domestic sectors of the economy. However, coupled with enhanced policy support for China＇ s external development, fiscal federalism might have helped to further accelerate resource shifts toward the external sector, thus resulting in an unprecedented rapid expansion in China＇ s exports since the mid1990s.     

Managing Future Oil Revenues in Ghana: An Assessment of Alternative Allocation Options*

Abstract: Contemporary policy debates on the macroeconomics of resource booms often concentrate on the short‐run Dutch disease effects of public expenditure, ignoring the possible long‐term effects of alternative revenue‐allocation options and the supply‐side impact of royalty‐financed public investments. In a simple model applied here, the government decides the level and timing of resource‐rent spending. This model also considers productivity spillovers over time, which may exhibit a sector bias toward domestic production or exports. A dynamic computable general equilibrium (DCGE) model is used to simulate the effect of temporary oil revenue inflows to Ghana. The simulations show that beyond the short‐run Dutch disease effects, the relationship between windfall profits, growth, and households’ welfare is less straightforward than what the simple model of the ‘resource curse’ suggests. The DCGE model results suggest that designing a rule that allocates oil revenues to both productivity‐enhancing investments and an oil fund is crucial to achieving shared growth and macroeconomic stability.     

Fiscal decentralization and local expenditure policy in China

Since the tax-sharing reform in 1994, the Chinese fiscal system has exhibited a marked vertical fiscal imbalance—a mismatch between expenditure and revenue assignments—at the local levels, which may cause the common-pool problem in local governments' behavior. Using a large fiscal dataset at the county level from 1997 to 2006, this paper studies the effects of fiscal decentralization on local expenditure policy and analyzes how the vertical fiscal imbalance shapes these effects. The estimation results show that expenditure decentralization increases government spending and leads to a fund allocation with a larger weight on capital construction and smaller weights on education and administration. In contrast, revenue decentralization has little influence on local government expenditures. We show that the differences in the effects of expenditure and revenue decentralization can be attributed to the distortionary effects caused by the vertical fiscal imbalance and, thus, offer support to the importance of the common-pool problem at the county level of China's fiscal system.     

Exiting from Fragility in Sub‐Saharan Africa: The Role of Fiscal Policies and Fiscal Institutions

This paper studies the role of fiscal policies and institutions in building resilience in sub‐Saharan African countries, focussing on 26 countries that were deemed fragile in the 1990s. We use a probabilistic framework together with GMM estimation to address endogeneity and reverse causality. We find that fiscal institutions and fiscal space, namely the capacity to raise tax revenue and contain current spending, as well as the quality of public expenditure, are significantly and robustly associated with building resilience. Similar conclusions arise from a qualitative study of 7 sub‐Saharan African countries in the sample that built resilience since the 1990s.     

福建省税收负担对经济增长影响的计量分析

回顾了经济增长理论中政府税收对经济增长影响的分析和国内学者对我国税收和经济增长关系所进行的研究,利用福建省1979—2008年经济增长和宏观税负的数据进行协整分析和Granger因果检验。实证分析的结果表明:福建省的人均GDP和财政收入存在长期稳定的均衡关系,不存在Granger因果关系。本文进一步提出了政策建议。     

人口年龄结构转变对经常项目差额的影响机制与实证分析

本文对人口年龄结构转变作用于经常项目差额的影响机制进行了分析,在此基础上运用协整、基于VECM的Granger因果检验、脉冲响应函数分析了劳动力抚养负担、经济增长和经常项目差额之间的动态关系。研究发现,应从长期性结构视角认识劳动力抚养负担对经常项目差额的反向作用;短期来看,二者之间不存在显著关系。与此不同,经济增长对经常项目的影响无论是长期还是短期都非常显著。快速减轻的劳动力抚养负担通过储蓄、消费、投资、出口以及政府财政收支等传导变量促使经常项目差额增加,这是人口年龄结构、经济增长以及经常项目差额之间动态关系产生的内在逻辑。     

是土地供应量与房地产税赋提高了房价吗

自分税制实施后,“土地财政”成为我国地方政府获取收入以支撑财政支出的主要选择,而与此同时房价也在不断上涨。中央政府从民生角度要求地方政府对房价实施调控,地方政府则主要通过调整土地供给量和房地产税税赋来施加影响。土地供应量和税赋会影响供需双方从而影响房价,反过来房价又会影响税收收入及开发商对土地的需求,进而影响社会民生。本文对我国东、中、西部地区住房价格和土地供给量、房地产税税赋之间的关系进行分析,探讨各地区的住房价格上涨原因。通过构建住房价格和土地供给量、房地产税税赋之间的PVAR模型,利用格兰杰因果检验、脉冲分析和方差分解方法来透视地方政府行为对住房价格的影响。分析结果显示,地方政府行为和房价之间存在着联动关系,但在推动住房价格上涨的原因上存在着区域差异：在东部地区,土地供应量影响房价;中部地区,二者联合推动了房价上涨。而在西部地区,房地产税税赋对房价的影响明显。在政策建议上,对地价推动房价的地区要从丰富住房来源和数量入手,而税赋影响房价的地区则要完善相关税制改革。     

Decentralized Taxation and the Size of Government: Evidence from Swiss State and Local Governments

According to the Leviathan Model, fiscal federalism is a binding constraint on revenue‐maximizing government. The competitive pressure of fiscal federalism reduces public sector size, as compared to unitary states. This study uses panel data of Swiss cantons from 1980 to 1998 to empirically analyze the effect of different instruments on government revenue and its structure. Because of the considerable tax autonomy of sub‐national Swiss governments, it is possible to investigate different mechanisms by which fiscal federalism may influence government size. The results indicate that tax exporting has a revenue‐expanding effect; whereas, tax competition favors a smaller size of government. Fragmentation has no robust effect on the size of government revenue for Swiss cantons. The overall effect of revenue decentralization leads to fewer tax revenues but higher user charges. Thus, revenue decentralization favors a smaller size of government revenue and shifts government revenue from taxes to user charges.     

政府行为、市场化与城乡经济和谐发展——基于VAR模型的实证分析

城乡经济和谐发展是构建和谐社会的基本要求。本文以城乡收入差距为切入点,选取1978年—2011年的相关数据,运用VAR模型,从政府行为和市场化程度两个角度对城乡经济和谐发展程度进行研究。结果表明：政府行为、市场化程度与城乡经济和谐发展之间存在长期均衡关系;财政收支效率、国内经济市场化程度的提高有利于城乡经济的和谐发展,而财政分权、对外经济市场化程度的提高则不利于城乡经济的和谐发展。因此,可从协调财政收支比例,扩大财政支农规模;改进财政分权体制,优化地方政府财政支出结构;推进国内市场化进程,提高农村市场化水平;降低对外依存度,缩小城乡教育差距等途径来推进城乡经济的和谐发展。     

The distribution of seigniorage: a note on klein and neumann

Conclusion Building on Drazen [1985], we have developed a suitable framework for the analysis of the revenue from money and its distribution between the government and the central bank. In contrast to the accounting system offered by K-N, this framework adopts a consistent approach with respect to the stock and flow aspects of monetary revenue. Comparing their measure of the government’s share in monetary revenue with ours, one can conclude that K-N: (i) neglect the stock effects of monetary revenue; (ii) use an incorrect concept of debt in their definition of the government’s revenue; and (iii) mistakenly include a revaluation term in their definition of fiscal seigniorage. After correction for this last factor the share of the government in total seigniorage rises from 38.3 per cent to 64.8 per cent. It should be noticed that in the literature often a narrower concept of monetary revenue is used, namely the change in high-powered money (M). This concept neglects the stock component of the revenue of money (r M) as well as the operating and other costs of the central bank. At first sight, this may seem appropriate if the analysis concentrates on the tax aspect, i.e. the savings due to money creation, rather than the broader issue of evaluation of the benefits of the monetary monopoly. This concerns the extensive literature on optimal seigniorage as well as the literature on the tax-seigniorage trade-off [cf. Grilli, 1989]. However, as is clearly pointed out by Klein and Neumann, it is just with respect to this fiscal aspect of money that the distribution of revenues from money between the central bank and the government becomes relevant.