Inflation and the Financing of Government Expenditure: an Introductory Analysis with an Application to Turkey

This article presents a simple framework to assess the consistencyof appropriately defined fiscal deficits with other macroeconomictargets, such as inflation. It also considers the relation offiscal deficits to output growth, real exchange rate developments,and management of internal and external debt. Finally, it considersthe implications of relying on interest-bearing government debtto postpone the adjustment necessary to restore consistencywith inflation targets. It demonstrates how the intertemporalbudget constraint of the government creates a tradeoff betweencurrent and future adjustment. Real interest rates and outputgrowth rates are shown to determine the terms at which thistradeoff takes place. The usefulness of this framework is demonstratedthrough an analysis of fiscal policy options in Turkey in 1985.     

FISCAL DEFICITS AND MACROECONOMIC PERFORMANCE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

Although fiscal adjustment was urged on developing countriesduring the 1980s to lead them out of economic malaise, considerableuncertainty remains about the relations between fiscal policyand macroeconomic performance. To illustrate how financial markets,private spending, and the external sector react to fiscal policies,the behavior of holdings of money and public debt, private consumptionand investment, the trade balance, and the real exchange rateis modeled for a sample of ten developing countries. The studiesfind strong evidence that over the medium term, money financingof the deficit leads to higher inflation, while debt financingleads to higher real interest rates or increased repressionof financial markets, with the fiscal gains coming at increasinglyunfavorable terms. Consumers respond differently to conventionaltaxes, unconventional taxes (through inflation or interest andcredit controls), and debt financing, in ways that make fiscaladjustment the most effective means of increasing national saving.Private investment—but not private consumption—issensitive to the real interest rate, which rises under domesticborrowing to finance the deficit. Contrary to the popular presumption,in some countries private investment increases when public investmentdecreases. There is strong evidence that fiscal deficits spillover into external deficits, leading to appreciation of thereal exchange rate. Fiscal deficits and growth are self-reinforcing:good fiscal management preserves access to foreign lending andavoids the crowding out of private investment, while growthstabilizes the budget and improves the fiscal position. Thevirtuous circle of growth and good fiscal management is oneof the strongest arguments for a policy of low and stable fiscaldeficits.      

THE ECONOMICS OF THE GOVERNMENT BUDGET CONSTRAINT

This article summarizes the simple analytics of the macroeconomiceffects of government budget deficits. The presentation is organizedaround three key relationships: the national income accountsbudget deficit identity, the deficit financing identity, andthe dynamic equation for the evolution of the ratio of publicdebt to gross national product. The national income accountsidentity highlights the effect of the deficit on domestic savingand investment and the current account. Examining the financingof the deficit brings to light the different kinds of macroeconomicimbalance the deficit can cause—as a first approximation,printing money excessively shows up as inflation, excessiveuse of foreign reserves leads to crises in the balance of payments,high foreign borrowing leads to a debt crisis, and too muchdomestic borrowing leads to high real interest rates and crowdingout of private investment. The debt dynamics equation is usedto show the long-run constraints on fiscal policy.      

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.     

Debt, Death and Taxes

Does the level of government debt affect living standards and if so, to what extent? We quantify the impact of the U.S. federal debt using an open economy overlapping generations model in which consumers have long but finite lifetimes. A demographic structure allows fiscal policy changes to have different effects on different agents, and reveals the linkages between public debt, output and international trade. We find that reducing the debt has relatively modest impacts on aggregates, while reducing government spending substantially raises U.S. incomes and welfare. Therefore, this paper contributes to the current debate regarding whether U.S. federal government budget surpluses should be used to retire government debt.     

Borrowing to Finance Public Investment? The ‘Golden Rule of Public Finance’ Reconsidered in an Endogenous Growth Setting*

In this paper, we look for long‐run and short‐run effects of fiscal deficits on economic growth and welfare in a standard endogenous growth model. We show that, under very general hypotheses, the ‘golden rule of public finance’, which allows a government to run public‐investment‐oriented fiscal deficits, leads to a lower balanced‐growth path in the long run, and eventually in the short run, compared with balanced‐budget rules. Welfare effects are more difficult to assess, and depend on the form of the utility function. Our model shows that debt rules such as the golden rule may improve (if the consumption elasticity of substitution is ‘low’) or weaken (if the consumption elasticity of substitution is ‘high’) intertemporal welfare. Consequently, a balanced‐budget rule does not necessarily dominate debt rules from the point of view of welfare, while it does from the point of view of long‐run economic growth.     

Rational expectations and the effects of government debt

This paper incorporates the effects of government debt into a standard rational expectations macroeconomic model. Due to limited current information, even when the most extreme propositions about fiscal neutrality are true, there are output and interest rate effects of unanticipated changes in government debt. Therefore the observation of a positive correlation between government deficits and output or interest rates does not imply that government bonds are net wealth.     

Government investment and fiscal stimulus

Effects of government investment are studied in an estimated neoclassical growth model. The analysis focuses on two dimensions that are critical for understanding government investment as a fiscal stimulus: implementation delays for building public capital and expected fiscal adjustments to deficit-financed spending. Implementation delays can produce small or even negative labor and output responses to increases in government investment in the short run. Anticipated fiscal adjustments matter both quantitatively and qualitatively for long-run growth effects. When public capital is insufficiently productive, distorting financing can make government investment contractionary at longer horizons.     

地区竞争、支出责任下移与地方政府债务扩张

地方政府债务过度扩张容易引发系统性经济风险。本文通过一个地方政府举债行为理论模型,分析了政府间共同事权的支出责任下移、竞争性地区的举债行为对地方政府债务规模的影响。在此基础上构建空间面板计量模型,利用279个地级市数据进行回归分析,结果表明:地方政府债务扩张是支出责任下移与标尺竞争机制共同驱动的结果;政府间支出责任下移造成的财政压力是地方政府被动负债的重要原因;地方政府间的标尺竞争使其在举债融资行为上表现为明显的策略模仿;各地区在债务扩张的主因上存在异质性,东部地区政府债务的增加主要是地区间竞争的结果。这意味着化解地方政府债务风险不仅应规范政府间财政支出责任划分,更重要的是完善地方政府的政绩考核体系和违规举债的问责机制。     

Devaluation, Fiscal Deficits, and the Real Exchange Rate

This article examines the use of fiscal policies to sustainthe effects of a nominal devaluation on the real exchange rate.It is shown that the magnitude of the change in the real exchangerate depends not only on the size of the devaluation and thedegree of fiscal adjustment but also on the means by which thefiscal deficit is reduced. The change in the nominal exchangerate necessary to maintain the depreciation of the real exchangerate will depend on whether the fiscal deficit is eliminatedby increasing taxes or by reducing government expenditures ontraded and nontraded goods. The required depreciation of thedomestic currency will be larger if the fiscal deficit is reducedby increasing taxes than it will be if the deficit is cut bylowering government expenditures. Further, the depreciationwould be smaller if the cuts in expenditure fell on traded ratherthan nontraded goods. This result implies that the authoritiesmust ensure consistency between exchange rate action and policiesto reduce fiscal imbalances in order to achieve a desired levelof the real exchange rate necessary to attain balance of paymentsequilibrium.     

Deficits,money and inflation

This paper examines the interrelationships between monetary and fiscal policy. Specifically, it seeks to determine whether Government budget deficits influence monetary growth. Using a money supply model originally developed by Barro, we find that deficits have had a significant impact on the growth of the U.S. money supply throughout most of the period since 1961. Such a relationship need not always hold. It depends on whether government deficits place upward pressure on interest rates and whether the central bank monetizes the debt in an effort to stabilize interest rates.     

Fiscal and Monetary Policy Coordination,Macroeconomic Stability,and Sovereign Risk Premia

In standard macroeconomic models, equilibrium stability and uniqueness require monetary policy to actively target inflation and fiscal policy to ensure long‐run debt sustainability. We show analytically that these requirements change, and depend on the cyclicality of fiscal policy, when government debt is risky. In that case, budget deficits raise interest rates and crowd out consumption. Consequently, countercyclical fiscal policies reduce the parameter space supporting stable and unique equilibria and are feasible only if complemented with more aggressive debt consolidation and/or active monetary policy. Stability is more easily achieved, however, under procyclical fiscal policies.     

What do deficits tell us about debt? Empirical evidence on creative accounting with fiscal rules in the EU

Fiscal rules, such as the excessive deficit procedure and the stability and growth pact (SGP), aim at constraining government behavior. [Milesi-Ferretti, G., 2003. Good, bad or ugly? On the effects of fiscal rules with creative accounting, Journal of Public Economics, 88, 377–394] develops a model in which governments circumvent such rules by reverting to creative accounting. The amount of this depends on the reputation cost for the government and the economic cost of sticking to the rule. We provide empirical evidence of creative accounting in the European Union. We find that the SGP rules have induced governments to use stock-flow adjustments, a form of creative accounting, to hide deficits. The tendency to substitute stock-flow adjustments for budget deficits is especially strong for the cyclical component of the deficit, as in times of recession the cost of reducing the deficit is particularly large.     

地方政府债务、空间溢出效应与区域经济增长

在区域协调发展和城市群不断扩大的背景下,本文基于2008-2018年我国271个地级市的平衡面板数据,利用动态空间杜宾模型探究地方政府债务通过基础设施建设渠道促进区域经济增长的作用机制。研究发现:(1)地方政府债务存在空间溢出效应,即本地的地方政府债务能够促进邻近区域的经济增长。该结论不随模型设定、代理变量、估计方法更改而发生变化。(2)从时间维度上看,基础设施的服务期限较长,因此地方政府债务对邻近区域经济增长的空间溢出效应存在时间累加,即长期效应大于短期效应。(3)从空间维度上看,我国省际间存在市场分割,导致地方政府债务的空间溢出效应省内强于省外。与此同时,地方政府债务的空间溢出效应主要存在于东部发达区域。(4)机制研究发现,基础设施作为政府提供的公共品,具有正外部性,在促进本地经济增长的同时,通过提升区域内互联性,促进了邻近区域的经济增长。本文研究表明,地方政府债务发行应同时考量本地效应、空间溢出效应以及区域差异;此外,制定地方债务相关政策时应在稳增长(同时考虑本地经济增长和区域经济增长)和防风险之间寻求平衡。     

地方竞争是否阻碍了地方政府债务绩效的提升？——理论框架及空间计量研究

本文从举债行为策略视角考察地方竞争对地方政府债务绩效的影响。 首先,从不同地区间举债行为策略互动的视角对地方竞争如何影响地方政府债务绩效进行理论诠释,其次,在采用Global超效率DEA方法测度地方政府债务绩效的基础上,突破空间独立性假设,运用空间杜宾模型对地方竞争影响地方政府债务绩效的效果及空间外溢性进行实证检验。研究发现,在地方效用最大化目标导向下,无论是地方税收竞争还是公共投资竞争,都对债务增速产生了较为显著的正向影响和空间外溢效应,导致地方采取主动扩大债务规模的举债行为策略。与此同时,随着债务规模的持续增长,无论是地方税收竞争还是公共投资竞争,都将对债务绩效产生“规模报酬递减”的负向影响和空间外溢效应,尤其是公共投资竞争的影响效果更加明显。进一步地,如果考虑到可能存在预算软约束现象,地方竞争还将与预算软约束行为相结合,对债务绩效产生了“使用效率递减”的负向影响。本文结论为通过债务合理使用来促进经济高质量发展,防范化解地方政府债务风险提供了政策启示。     

Assessing Economic and Fiscal Reforms in Lebanon: A Dynamic CGE Analysis with Debt Constraints

Since the early 1990s, Lebanon has undertaken a number of economic reforms, covering international trade and internal fiscal policy issues in particular. Simultaneously, debt has been skyrocketing, partially justified by reconstruction needs after the end of the civil war. Fostering economic growth seems to be the only way out of the debt trap, but reforms intended to stimulate growth may well have adverse short-run effects on public and external deficits. We construct a dynamic open-economy computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with debt constraints in the sense that external debt requires physical capital as collateral. The CGE model allows us to study the effects of a number of important economic policy issues, such as fiscal policy reform, World Trade Organization (WTO) membership, and foreign direct investment, in a multisectoral dynamic setting under the realistic assumption that debt constraints relax when the economy starts growing. Included in the results are reports on scenarios of trade liberalization and political stabilization.     

Sovereign risk,public debt,dollarization, and the output effects of fiscal austerity

The goal of this paper is to investigate effects of fiscal policy on output as a response to an external shock at different levels and currency compositions of public debt. Central to our analysis is the mutual relationship between sovereign risk and public debt on the one hand, and the linkage between sovereign risk and private credit spreads on the other. We show that fiscal austerity is conducive to real economic activity when initial government debt is high, its foreign currency share is important, and the link between sovereign and corporate spreads is strong.     

积极财政政策的可持续性分析

本文分别从当前宏观经济形势、我国政府债务风险和公共部门投资的挤出效应三个方面考察了我国积极财政政策的可持续性。认为我国当前的经济形势下 ,积极财政政策的淡出还为时尚早 ;我国单纯的国债风险并不高 ,但是我国政府的综合债务风险却相当大 ,控制我国综合债务风险的关键是控制存量 ;我国公共部门对民间投资的挤出效应不明显 ,当前民间投资不活跃的主要原因是另一种“挤出效应” ,即对民间投资的歧视和限制 ,要改变这种情况的主要方法是改革     

The Strange and Futile World of Trade Wars

U.S. President Donald Trump has a misguided, mercantilist view of international trade. He believes that an external (or “trade”) deficit is a “problem,” and that this deficit is caused by foreigners engaging in unfair trade practices. Accordingly, the president and his followers feel that the U.S. is being—and has long been—victimized by foreigners. The reality, however, is that the negative external balance in the U.S. is neither a “problem” nor is it attributable to foreigners engaging in nefarious activities. The U.S.'s negative external balance, which the country has registered every year since 1975, is “made in the USA.” External balances are always and everywhere homegrown; they are the reflection and the result of the relationship between domestic savings and domestic investment. And it is the gap between a country's savings and domestic investment that is the fundamental driver and determinant of its external balance. Specifically, the current account balance, or “trade deficit,” is the sum of the private savings‐investment gap and the public savings‐investment gap, or what is known as the “fiscal balance.” From 1972 until the end of 2018, for example, the cumulative private sector savings‐investment gap in the U.S. was a positive $12.8 trillion; that is, U.S. companies and individuals collectively saved—that is, earned and retained—some $12.8 trillion more than they consumed and invested domestically. But this positive balance was completely overshadowed by the cumulative negative government gap—or cumulative fiscal deficits—of $24.2 trillion during this 47‐year period. And thus the U.S. as a whole experienced a savings‐investment gap of negative $11.4 trillion that is entirely attributable to the country's fiscal deficits. What's more, the fact that the U.S. recorded a cumulative current account deficit of $11.5 trillion during this period confirms that the U.S. external deficits simply mirror what is happening in the U.S. domestic economy, just as the savings‐investment identity suggests. And, of course, the savings‐investment identity holds true for all countries, even those with significant external surpluses. Japan and China have both long experienced savings surpluses, and both have run current account surpluses that have mirrored their positive savings‐investment gaps. If the U.S. mercantilists understood what causes trade and current account deficits, they would direct their ire at profligate government spending rather than at foreigners. But they don't understand. And the leader of the mercantilists, President Trump, is flying blind and presiding over ever‐expanding fiscal deficits—which will only ensure that the current account deficits not just continue, but get bigger.