Liability-creating Versus Non-liability-creating Fiscal Stabilisation Policies: Ricardian Equivalence, Fiscal Stabilisation, and EMU

This paper looks at theoretical and empirical issues associated with the operation of fiscal stabilisers within an economy. It argues that such stabilisers operate most effectively at a national, rather than local, level. As differing cycles across regions tend to offset each other for the country as a whole, national fiscal stabilisers are not associated with the same increase in future tax liabilities for the region as local ones. Accordingly, the negative impact from the Ricardian effects associated with these tax liabilities is smaller. Empirical work on data across Canadian provinces indicates that local stabilisers are only one third to one half as effective as national stabilisers which create no future tax liability.     

Fiscal Policy in Australia and Southeast Asia: An Overview

Ian M. McDonald introduces a Policy Forum on Fiscal Policy in Australia and Southeast Asia . In this Policy Forum two papers focus on the fiscal policy of the Howard Government. A third paper considers the role of fiscal policy in the currency crisis in Southeast Asia.     

Does the Ricardian Equivalence Proposition Hold in Less Developed Countries?

The objective of this paper is to assess whether the Ricardian Equivalence Proposition (REP) holds in developing countries. Prima facie, since the REP requires a number of assumptions that might not appear to be satisfied in developing countries, it seems that the REP should not hold. However, the empirical evidence provided so far is mixed. In this paper, the validity of the REP will be tested using panel data for ten developing countries: Burundi, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, India, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Zimbabw1e. The countries were chosen for the availability of data and should reflect the various circumstances of low-income countries. Despite the obvious limitation of the data available and the diversity of the countries, the results provide some tentative support for the REP for developing countries, at least warranting further research.     

我国财政改革和政策实践研究

本文回顾了我国财政改革、财政政策演进历程,揭示了财政政策演进规律,探讨了财政政策宏观调控实践经验。研究发现:首先,与一般市场经济国家不同,我国财政政策从概念认识、实践启动、到运用技术日臻成熟,走出了一条缓解经济危机实现经济稳定、调节经济结构转变经济增长方式、化解民生难题促进社会和谐的独特之路。在这一过程中,财政政策更加注重供给管理。其次,在当前体制转轨背景下,我国财政政策突显出公共性和体制转型双重特征。最后,面对未来,我们需要在财政政策如何更好遵循市场经济规律;财政政策目标如何更聚焦于未来发展战略,如何推进财政改革以确保财政政策调控更具效力等方面总结更多的经验。     

Fiscal Policy, Monetary Policy and the Exchange Rate

Domestic fiscal and monetary policy settings can influence the strength of the Australia dollar in a number of different ways.     

结构性财政调控与新常态下财政工具选择

本文综合考虑李嘉图和非李嘉图两类居民个体行为,构建新凯恩斯动态随机一般均衡模型,形成了一个较为系统的结构性财政工具经济效应研究框架。研究发现,不同财政工具的宏观经济效应存在显著差异,政府在进行财政宏观调控时应区别对待、审慎选取。模拟冲击结果表明减税效应相对优于支出扩张效应。在当前经济增速放缓、财政支出为主的刺激政策渐显乏力之际,政府应转变以往财政政策调控思路,逐步由大规模政府支出刺激政策向结构性减税政策调整。本文认为,应深入推行政府和社会资本合作(PPP)模式,支出重点向社保、医疗、养老及公共服务倾斜,促进政府逐步向服务型政府过渡;税收政策应主要以对消费结构性减税为主,以有效促进需求结构向消费驱动转型。     

On the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy and of Fiscal Policy

There has been a major shift within macroeconomic policy over the past two decades or so in terms of the relative importance given to monetary policy and to fiscal policy in both policy and theoretical terms. The former has gained considerably in importance, with the latter being rarely mentioned. Furthermore, the nature of monetary policy has shifted away from any attempt to control some monetary aggregate (prevalent in the first half of the 1980s), and instead monetary policy has focused on the setting of interest rates as the key policy instrument. There has also been a general shift towards the adoption of inflation targets and the use of monetary policy to target inflation. This paper considers the significance of this shift in the nature of monetary policy. This enables us to question the effectiveness of monetary policy, and to explore the role of fiscal policy. We examine these questions from the point of view of the "new consensus" in monetary economics and suggest that it is rather limited in its analysis. When the analysis is broadened out to embrace empirical issues and evidence the clear conclusion emerges that monetary policy is relatively impotent. The role of fiscal policy is also considered, and we argue that fiscal policy (under specified conditions) remains a powerful tool for macroeconomic policy. This is particularly an apt conclusion under current economic conditions.     

积极财政政策与财政风险问题分析

1998年以来,为了应对通货紧缩的经济形势,政府实施积极财政政策,运用财政"反周期调节",刺激国内需求,拉动经济回升.但是,积极财政政策是一把"双刃剑",既可以发挥治理通货紧缩的积极作用,同时也会带来负面影响,如果运用不好,将会产生很大的财政风险.为了确保国家财政安全与稳健运行,有必要对积极财政政策可能产生的风险进行分析和把握,并积极采取措施加以防范和化解,避免潜在的财政风险转化为财政危机.     

Monetary and Fiscal Policy Rules in the EMU

Abstract. This paper studies the design and effects of monetary and fiscal policy in the euro area. To do so, a stylized two‐region model of monetary and fiscal policy rules in the EMU is built. We analyse how monetary and fiscal rules affect the adjustment dynamics in the model. Both the effects on the individual countries and on the EMU aggregate economy are studied. Three aspects play an important role in the analysis: (i) the consequences of alternative monetary and fiscal policy rules, (ii) the consequences of asymmetries between EMU countries (asymmetries in macroeconomic shocks and macroeconomic structures), and (iii) the role of alternative degrees of backward‐ and forward‐looking behaviour in consumer decisions and inflation expectations.     

财政平衡观与积极财政政策的可持续性

财政平衡理论是财政学体系的一个重要组成部分。财政收支矛盾是财政的主要矛盾,财政民歧矛盾是绝对的,平衡是相对的,其运动轨迹表现为“不平衡－平衡－不平衡”;另一方面,财政收支不是彼此依存、相互统一的,即绝对的财政收支矛盾（不平衡）可以转化为相对的财政收支统一（平衡）。因此,财政收支运动是按照“平衡－不平衡－平衡”的转变向前发展的。财政政策的可持续性实质上是财政风险的控制问题;“财政平衡”与“财政政策的可持续性”既有共通之处,也有差异之处。因此从整体上和中长期战略上看,必须实施平衡的财政政策。     

欧元体系财政与货币政策协调性分析

欧元区集中统一的货币政策和权力分散的财政政策 ,已有 4年多的实践历程 ,实践表明财政与货币政策协调性较差 ,欧盟的机构设置与政策结构的设计的确存在缺陷 ,采取扩张性货币政策缓解内部冲击与价格稳定首要目标已处于两难境地。实现统一的“大财政”,通过财政转移 ,重新配置资源 ,以帮助成员国吸收不对称冲击的影响 ,是提高欧元体系财政与货币政策协调性措施之一。     

Fiscal Policy in Southeast Asia

Monetary policy was ineffective in dealing with the 1997 Asian macroeconomic crisis. Fiscal policy might have been more effective but was not considered for a variety of reasons.     

财政政策与价格水平的决定

价格水平是如何决定的呢 ?是否正如弗里德曼曾经说过的“通货膨胀总是 ,而且永远是一个货币现象”一样 ,通货膨胀仅仅是一个货币现象呢 ?从 2 0世纪 90年代开始 ,人们纷纷给出了不同的看法。本文通过两个模型给出了价格水平决定的财政理论 ,指出价格水平由政府债券的实际值与政府财政剩余相等来决定     

Intergenerational Redistribution and Fiscal Policy

This article argues that although the intergenerational stance of fiscal policy is hard to measure accurately, a goal of approximate generational balance is reasonable.     

Fiscal Policy and Exchange Rates

This paper examines the dynamics of the nominal exchange rate and fiscal deficits in a continuous time optimizing general equilibrium model with OLG. It is shown that alternative financing modes of budget deficits imply different patterns of adjustment along the transitional path towards the steady-state equilibrium. In particular, the respect of public solvency without money financing is not sufficient to avoid the depreciation of the exchange rate in the long-run after a fiscal expansion. In addition, money and tax financing generate opposite intergenerational reallocation of wealth.     

Fiscal Policy and Equitable Growth

This paper continues the study of optimal fiscal policy in a growing economy by exploring a case in which the government simultaneously provides three main categories of expenditures with distortionary tax finance: public production services, public consumption services, and state-contingent redistributive transfers. The paper shows that in a general-equilibrium model with given exogenous fiscal policy, a nonmonotonic relation exists between the suboptimal long-run growth rate in a competitive economy and distortionary tax rates. When fiscal policy is endogenously chosen at a social optimum, the relation between the rate of growth and tax rates is always negative. These two properties suggest that an alternative set of government policy instruments affects the response of private sector investment to fiscal policy. Moreover, the different properties of exogenous and endogenous fiscal policy theoretically account for the difference in the relation between economic growth and fiscal policy in empirical studies.     

SARS疫情的财政思考

突发性公共卫生事件本身的特点决定着,财政体系和政策在抵御疫情方面发挥着不可替代的作用。SARS疫情的出现,从近期看,会对财政收支产生压力;从远期看,则会促使财政部门更为理性地处理收支矛盾。针对疫情,各级财政出台了一系列积极措施并产生了很好的功效,同时也暴露出存在的问题。在建立公共财政框架体系的过程中,应该充分考虑公共卫生因素,树立风险意识,寻求可行的筹资模式,加大对公共卫生事业的投入力度。     

货币政策与财政政策的“新共识”

20世纪90年代以来,宏观经济政策领域出现了一种"新共识",近年来得到进一步发展。在"新共识"宏观经济模型中,货币存量不起作用,但货币政策被赋予非常重要的作用,货币政策可以决定通货膨胀;货币政策采用盯住通货膨胀的方式,通过调节利率将通货膨胀控制在一个较低的水平。财政政策在管理总需求水平方面仍然是一个强有力的工具,"新共识"宏观经济学体现了"货币主义与财政主义的综合"。     

我国稳健财政政策中的赤字问题

稳健财政政策中的财政赤字问题存在较多争议,本文从理论上分析了稳健财政政策并不排斥财政赤字,并对我国1998年以来财政政策的方向进行了定量测算,提出我国稳健财政政策的关键是将财政收入、财政支出增长速度控制在经济潜在增长速度。     

Monetary and Fiscal Policy Interactions in the Euro Area

The problem of monetary and fiscal policy interactions is an important issue for the euro area, since the individual member states of the EMU are responsible for their fiscal policies but monetary policy is pursued by a single monetary authority, the ECB. This paper is concerned with empirical evidence on monetary and fiscal policy interactions in the euro area. We first explore fiscal regimes with a VAR model and find empirical evidence that a non-Ricardian fiscal policy has been pursued in both France and Germany. As an example, we then study how one member state of the EMU, namely, Italy, is responding to the common monetary policy with its fiscal policy and find that Italian fiscal policy seemed to be counteractive to the common monetary policy between 1979 and 1998. In order to study monetary and fiscal policy interactions in a more general way, we explore time-varying interactions by estimating a State-Space model with Markov-switching for some Euro-area countries. There appear to be some regime changes in monetary and fiscal policy interactions in France and Germany, but the interactions between the two policies are not strong. Moreover, the two policies have not been accommodative but counteractive to each other. Finally we explore forward-looking behavior in policy interactions and find that expectations do not seem to have played an important role in the policy designs.