辽宁省应对金融危机财政政策效果的实证分析

本文重点定量探讨了辽宁省财政政策实施效果.利用协整关系检验表明,辽宁省的财政支出、货币供给、税收以及实际GDP之间存在显著的协整关系,财政支出对辽宁省经济增长具有促进作用.通过定量分析结果看出,辽宁省为应对全球金融危机而实行的扩张性财政政策,对拉动投资、促进经济增长、调整产业结构和解决内需不足等问题能够得到相关数据和统计检验的支持.     

The effects of financial crisis on fiscal positions

The recent financial crisis was characterized by the sizeable fiscal cost of banking sector bail out operations and the significant automatic and discretionary fiscal policy response to shrinking output, which have put increased pressure on public finances in many industrialized countries. This paper tries to evaluate the impact of financial crisis episodes on debt developments. The findings indicate that severe financial crisis episodes increase the stock of debt by 2.7%–4.0% of GDP, on average in the 20 OECD countries examined. Ιn countries with big financial sectors it ranges from 4.2%–5.3% of GDP and in countries with smaller financial sectors it is about 1.4%–1.7% of GDP. The primary balance and the cyclically adjusted fiscal policy stance ease by about 2.6% of GDP and 1.6% of potential GDP, respectively, in the event of a severe financial market crash. Expansionary fiscal interventions are more pronounced in countries with sizable financial sectors. I find significant evidence that a financial market collapse paves the way for a subsequent deterioration in debt ratios.     

Optimal climate and fiscal policy in an OLG economy

This paper develops a climate–economy model to study the joint design of optimal climate and fiscal policies in economies with overlapping generations (OLGs). I demonstrate how capital taxation, if optimal, drives a wedge between the market costs of carbon (the net present value of marginal damages using the market interest rate) and the Pigouvian tax (the net present value of marginal damages using the consumption discount rate of successive OLGs). In contrast to deterministic infinitely lived representative agent models, at the optimum, the capital income tax is positive, the carbon price equals the market costs of carbon but it falls short of the Pigouvian tax when (i) preferences are not separable over consumption and leisure; and (ii) labor income taxes cannot be age-dependent. I also show that restrictions on climate change policy provide a novel rationale for positive capital income taxes.     

The eurozone financial crisis: debt,credit ratings and monetary and fiscal policy

This paper discusses the eurozone financial crisis. It argues that it was largely the result of a common monetary policy not being suitable for individual countries which led to excessive private and public borrowing and a debt crisis. Neither borrowing rates nor credit ratings anticipated the crisis. Fundamental changes to eurozone governance are being proposed. The paper examines whether instead there might be a market solution if financial markets priced risk better. Accordingly, a more timely way of obtaining credit ratings is shown.     

Analysing the effects of fiscal policy shocks in the South African economy

This paper is the first one to analyse the effect of aggregate government spending and taxes on output for South Africa using three types of a calibrated DSGE model and more data driven models such as a structural vector error correction model (SVECM) and a time-varying parameter VAR (TVP-VAR) to capture possible asymmetries and time variation of fiscal impulses. The impulse responses indicate first, that increases in government expenditure have a positive impact, albeit (at times) less than unity, on GDP in the short run; second, over the long run, the impact of government expenditure on GDP is insignificant; and third, increases in taxes decrease GDP over the short run, while having negligible effects over longer horizons.     

The macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy in a stochastically growing economy

This paper develops a stochastic model of endogenous growth with productive government expenditure. Herein, we specify the CES production function according to recent empirical evidence. The elasticity of substitution plays a key role in determining macroeconomic performance and the effectiveness of fiscal policy under uncertainty. Results demonstrate that a large elasticity of substitution provides a large expected growth rate and also large volatility of the growth rate. Regarding these effects, the growth-maximizing tax rate and welfare-maximizing tax rate under uncertainty are larger or smaller than those of deterministic economy according to the elasticity of substitution.     

Competition policy: ten lessons learnt from the financial crisis

The financial crisis brought great challenges also for competition policy. The aim of this paper is to summarize the most important insights for competition policy that could be derived from the turbulent period 2008–2010. The financial crisis is seen as project that demanded sound management from competition policy and enforcement. The insights will be presented in the instructive form of ‘lessons learnt’ which represents a common approved project management technique. We come to the result that the financial crisis is not the result of ‘too much competition’, but of regulatory failure and that the main answers to the financial crisis have to come from ‘smart regulation’. The relaxation of competition policy would be the wrong policy response in troubled times since competition policy can play an important role in bringing the crisis economy back on track. In contrast to banking we see no economic rationale for rescue packages for other economic sectors by referring to systemic risk. The renaissance of industrial policy is viewed with great skepticism since empirical evidence shows that the effort of picking ‘winners’ all too often results in saving ‘losers’.     

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.     

Dividend policy: Shareholder rights and creditor rights under the impact of the global financial crisis

The extant literature shows that shareholder and creditor rights positively affect corporate payout policy in a static macroeconomic environment. This study examines how the effects of shareholder and creditor rights on dividend policy change under the impact of the global financial crisis. We posit that this exogenous shock increases agency costs of both shareholders and creditors. With a sample of 133,631 firm-year observations from 23,890 firms incorporated in 41 countries, we find that both shareholder and creditor rights are less effective in dividend decisions in the post-crisis period and the extent of shareholder (creditor) expropriation in the post-crisis period is larger when creditors (shareholders) are adequately protected.     

On the dividend smoothing,signaling and the global financial crisis

This paper addresses twin problems related to dividend smoothing and signaling. Firstly, it provides direct test for dividend smoothing and signaling. Secondly, this paper attempts to examine the impact of Global Financial Crisis (GFC) on dividend stability. The paper estimates the Lintner model by incorporating Tobit structure using ten years longitudinal data of firms listed on the Muscat Securities Market. An empirical case study is conducted to demonstrate the usefulness of the model. Our empirical results validate both the original and the modified Lintner model, which is consistent with the signaling hypothesis. The paper finds that the impact of GFC on dividend policy is insignificant. Moreover, the evidence lends support to the substitute model of agency costs theory.     

The bank lending channel of monetary policy in EU countries during the global financial crisis

The study examines the existence of the bank lending channel of monetary policy in European Union (EU) countries. The paper advances current research on the monetary transmission mechanism in the following ways: Firstly, we analyze the differences between ‘old’ Economic Monetary Union (EMU) and ‘new’ EU countries. Secondly, we examine the key bank characteristics and monetary policy indicators that may have an impact on the bank lending channel. We assume that short-term market interest rates and monetary aggregate M2 affect banks' activities. We apply the generalized method of moments (GMM) with pooled data from 1999 to 2012. We show that in the pre-crisis period the effect of changing the short-term market interest rates on the bank lending channel of monetary policy is more pronounced among ‘old’ EMU countries, whereas the effect of M2 is significant during the period of the global financial crisis (GFC) among ‘old’ EMU countries. Last but not least the important finding is that banks in ‘new’ EU countries react differently to monetary shocks.     

Accelerated depreciation and the efficacy of temporary fiscal policy: Implications for an inflationary economy

The effect on investment of temporary tax rate changes depends on the age profile of depreciation deductions. If the depreciation allowance schedule is accelerated, then temporary cuts in the corporate tax rate could reduce investment. Inflation causes the age profile of real depreciation deductions to become accelerated and thus could make temporary tax cuts have a contractionary effect on investment. Two currently proposed reforms are shown to exacerbate this effect. Under each of these proposals, temporary tax cuts are likely to have opposite effects on investment in short-lived and long-lived capital, thereby complicating the conduct of countercyclical fiscal policy.     

The political economy of the Ecuadorian financial crisis

This paper takes the unusual step of exploring economic hypothesesthrough interviews with key economic agents. It focuses on thecauses of Ecuador's 1999 banking collapse, within an eclecticframework with Minskian elements. Broad support is found for‘endogenous’ explanations of financial crises andlittle backing for explanations such as accidents or policymistakes. Interviewees argued that after the stabilisation programmeof 1992, agents became euphoric and accumulated debt to financeimprudent levels of expansion; that incentives for moral hazardled to financial corruption and excessive risk taking; and thatweak regulation after financial liberalisation encouraged financialfragility.     

Non-Keynesian effects of fiscal policy in OECD economies: an empirical study

This article explores the hypothesis that the propensity to consume out of income varies in a nonlinear fashion with fiscal variables, and in particular with government debt per capita. Using panel data from 18 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries, we examine whether there is any empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that households move from non-Ricardian to Ricardian behaviour as government debt reaches high levels and as uncertainty about future taxes increases. Our results provide support for this hypothesis, and also suggest that private and government consumption are complements in the household utility function.     

On the neutrality of fiscal policy

The paper explores the relationships between fiscal policy and real economic activity and prices for the six largest industrialized economies. Fiscal policy variables are shown to be consistent and rational functions of the behaviour of the economy. It is also confirmed that fiscal policy seems to have a consistent impact on subsequent real economic activity and prices. When multivariate time series analysis is used to breakdown overall fiscal policy into anticipated and unanticipated components, the anticipated components are shown generally to have just as much forecasting ability for subsequently realized economic variables as the unanticipated components. This does not appear to be consistent with the implications of pure rational expectations models.     

On the response to the financial crisis of 1914: The Bank of England's discount policy

This work investigates the Bank of England's policy response to the London Financial Crisis of 1914, triggered by the outbreak of the Great War. By using daily data on discount operations drawn from the Bank of England's historical archive, we empirically test whether the Central Bank played the role of lender of last resort or it restricted credit. Our results suggest that, during 1914, the Bank of England did not change its policy in terms of bills’ discounting. Even though the discounter identity might have been a determinant of Bank's lending decisions (as in Flandreau and Ugolini, 2011 and 2013; Anson et al., 2019a), our evidence suggests that, throughout 1914, the Bank of England operated as a lender of last resort according to the Bagehot rules.     

Performance and productivity in Islamic and conventional banks: Evidence from the global financial crisis

We assess the performance and productivity of Islamic and conventional banks using financial ratios, a two- and a four-component meta-frontier Malmquist productivity index (MPI). We focus on the relatively homogenous GCC region over the 2006–2012 period that covers the global financial crisis. We find that Islamic banks exhibit worse cost and profit performance but are on a par with regards to revenue performance compared to the conventional ones. The components of the meta-frontier MPI suggest that the technology of conventional banks improves markedly in years leading to the financial crisis and declines thereafter. Islamic banks show a similar but more muted pattern. By contrast, the pronounced within-Islamic bank group variation in technical efficiency and technology suggests that Islamic banks are quite heterogeneous as a group. Overall, the MPI analysis suggests that the two bank types are more aligned following the global financial crisis. Policy makers should be wary of the important variations within the Islamic banking industry when implementing bank regulations.     

Effects of financial constraints on export performance of firms during the global financial crisis: microeconomic evidence from Korea

This study uses a manufacturing firm-level panel data set of South Korea for 2006–2013 to investigate the effect of financial constraints on the export performance of firms, with particular emphasis on the corporate ownership structure. The empirical results show that foreign multinational corporation (MNC) subsidiaries are not affected by financial constraint during both crisis and noncrisis periods, implying advantages of foreign ownership. However, domestic firms suffer more from financial constraints on exports during crisis years. In particular, domestic firms without parent firms are financially constrained during both crisis and noncrisis periods. However, those with parent firms do not experience financial constraints during noncrisis periods, although they too suffer from them during crisis periods. Thus, parent–subsidiary linkage among domestic firms plays an important role in alleviating financial constraints on export activity in noncrisis years but not as much during crisis years. Therefore, domestic parent firms exhibit less resilience to the global financial crisis, in comparison to foreign MNC parent firms.     

The design of monetary and fiscal policy: A global perspective

We study the emergence of multiple equilibria in models with capital and bonds under various monetary and fiscal policies. We show that the presence of capital is indeed another independent source of local and global multiplicities, even under active policies that yield local determinacy. We also show how a very similar mechanism generates multiplicities in models with bonds and distortionary taxation. We then explore the design of monetary policies that avoid multiple equilibria. We show that interest rate policies that respond to the output gap, while potentially a source of significant inefficiencies, may be effective in preventing multiple equilibria and costly oscillatory equilibrium dynamics.