人口老龄化、经济增长与财政政策

本文通过建立一个拓展的交叠世代模型,探讨了人口老龄化对经济增长的影响以及实现均衡增长的财政政策。研究发现,当人口老龄化对经济增长起到促进作用时,均衡增长政策是增加财政支出规模并加大健康保障支出;反之则是减少财政支出规模并加大公共教育支出。实证检验支持了理论模型的结论,并发现人口老龄化对中国经济增长的影响正在从积极转向消极。因此,中国应当逐步降低财政支出规模,并将更多的财政资金分配到公共教育领域。     

Cyclicality of Fiscal Policy in Latin America over the period 1990 ‐ 2015

Latin American countries experienced important changes in the 2000s. The implementation of fiscal reforms, public debt reduction and the high level of accumulated reserves gave them more policy space than in the past. As a result, Latin American countries were able to implement countercyclical policies to face the negative economic and social consequences associated with the recent macroeconomic shock. Some countries performed better than others. In particular, Social Democratic and Centrist governments enjoyed more fiscal space; they had realized larger budget surpluses over the good years and were able to cope with the crisis without impairing their fiscal conditions. Yet, Latin America has experienced a public finance deterioration in the most recent years. While governments are showing an increasing ability on taxation they are still facing some problems on the expenditure side. As a result, fiscal policy returned acyclical after the period of the crisis. The sustainability of public accounts may be strengthened increasing tax pressure on the richest, reducing tax evasion and improving current spending efficiency. However, the increasing political problems are putting many questions about future trends of public finance in the region.     

弱势下的扩张:中国财政状况和政策取向分析

目前以预算内财政收入计算的财政规模很低,但这一指标并没有全面反映我国财政的规模,真实的财政规模其实相当大。用“积极的财政政策和稳健的货币政策”概括1998年以来的宏观调控有失公允,为确保经济增长,中央政府实际上调动了包括货币政策在内的所有政策资源刺激经济。目前,我国债务规模在可控范围之内,真正决定积极财政政策取向的是财政项目的效益等因素,我国积极财政政策已经转向谨慎。正在实行的财政政策有两个显著特点,一是推进公共财政体系建设,这是由我国经济体制改革的总体目标设定的;二是在实行积极财政政策的同时,增加税收,这反映了财政在加强自身建设的同时(提高财政两个比重),竭力完成宏观调控目标的努力。这两个看似矛盾的政策,统一在当前的财政政策中,恰当地反映了转型期财政必须应对的多重目标。     

人口老龄化、经济增长与财政政策

本文通过建立一个拓展的交叠世代模型,探讨了人口老龄化对经济增长的影响以及实现均衡增长的财政政策。研究发现,当人口老龄化对经济增长起到促进作用时,均衡增长政策是增加财政支出规模并加大健康保障支出;反之则是减少财政支出规模并加大公共教育支出。实证检验支持了理论模型的结论,并发现人口老龄化对中国经济增长的影响正在从积极转向消极。因此,中国应当逐步降低财政支出规模,并将更多的财政资金分配到公共教育领域。     

No Credit for Transition: European Institutions and German Unemployment

The Stability and Growth Pact, adopted by members of the European Union,imposes tight limits on government deficits. But since the collapse of Communism,Europe has been faced with the problems of economies in transition: and reunifiedGermany—the leading economy of the EU—combines a prosperous western stateand an eastern economy in the process of transition. In a model where unions play akey role in wage bargaining and transition imposes a substantial burden on thenational budget, we analyze the implications of balancing the budget for the path ofunemployment. Where high but temporary costs are financed by raising taxes onemployment to satisfy the Stability and Growth Pact, then the title is a misnomer:relative to a policy of `tax smoothing', the pact increases unemployment and slowsgrowth. In designing fiscal rules for Europe, the benefits of tax smoothing must beweighed in the balance along with the virtues of fiscal discipline.     

财政赤字、通货膨胀与债务危机——陈云对赤字财政的有关思想及其现实启示

"坚决不打赤字财政",是陈云一贯而鲜明的主张,因为在他看来,财政赤字与通货膨胀密不可分。建国初期,我国人民饱受通货膨胀之苦,而"币值下跌、物价上涨的主要原因,是政府的财政赤字庞大"。因此,陈云力主财政安排留有余地,尽量避免出现赤字,尤其忌讳将赤字用于投资。在这一思想的主导下,计划经济时期我国财政预算保持平衡,物价基本稳定。新时期以来,我国经济体制和市场环境发生重大变化,财政赤字渐成常态,相应地物价亦呈不断上涨趋势。尽管近年来连年出现的财政赤字主要依靠发行公共债务来弥补,但这终究不是长久之计,当下的欧债危机警醒了我们,陈云提出的"建设规模的大小必须和国家财力物力相适应"是一条不变的真理。     

Interactions between Monetary and Fiscal Policy Rules

The Fiscal Stability Pact for EMU implies that constraints on fiscal policy facilitate inflation control. In this paper we identify two stable policy regimes. When monetary policy seeks to raise real interest rates in response to excess inflation, a self-stabilising fiscal policy is required to ensure model stability. A fiscal policy which does not, by itself, ensure fiscal solvency constrains monetary policy to be relatively 'passive'. However, in simulations we conclude that the central bank does not need to seek, on this account, the degree of debt stabilisation that appears to be implied by the fiscal stability pact.     

相机抉择政策、经济增长与地区产出波动

本文旨在研究地方政府的相机抉择政策对经济增长和产出波动的实际影响。本文首先从预算软约束和晋升激励的角度分析这一政策的作用方式，然后用模型测度出相机抉择政策，并以2000—2013年的省际面板数据进行实证检验。研究表明，相机抉择的确刺激了地方经济增长，但却带来了明显的产出波动。不过相机抉择政策具有明显的时滞，其真实效果集中凸显在政策实施的两年后。因此，我国应加强公共财政制度的建设，使相机抉择政策在规则的框架下更为合理地使用。     

Fiscal policy under a minimum‐time objective

In an endogenous growth model, we characterize the fiscal policy driven by a minimum‐time objective of economic development. We find that in equilibrium government should levy the highest possible consumption taxes, reduce public expenditures to the lowest possible level, and keep labor income tax rate and capital income tax rate satisfy a substitution relationship at the balanced budget constraint. We also identify the condition under which income tax rate should be set to zero. We further find that the equilibrium fiscal policy is equivalent to the growth‐maximizing fiscal policy, whereas it generally deviates from the welfare‐maximizing fiscal policy. We hence identify a circumstance where setting the policy goal of reaching an economic‐performance target as soon as possible cannot be justified in the sense of maximizing the welfare of households.     

Fiscal Settings and the Steady State Growth Path*

This paper outlines how deficit-neutral fiscal settings, via their impact on the growth/distribution equation, can play a positive role in minimizing deviant macroeconomic performance. The conventional Solow-Swan model of economic growth assigns no role to the standard instruments of fiscal policy in influencing the equilibrium growth path. In the model presented here, government fiscal policy–in the form of tax and transfer rates–is shown to have real effects on the long-term growth path of the unionized macroeconomy, even when the budget is permanently balanced and policy is fully announced.     

Sovereign default risk premia,fiscal limits,and fiscal policy

We develop a closed economy model to study the interactions among sovereign risk premia, fiscal limits, and fiscal policy. The fiscal limits, which measure the government's ability to service its debt, arise endogenously from dynamic Laffer curves. The state-dependent distributions of fiscal limits depend on the growth of lump-sum transfers, the size of the government, the degree of countercyclical policy responses, and economic diversity. The country-specific fiscal limits imply that the market perceives the riskiness of sovereign debt issued by different countries to be different, which is consistent with the observation that developed countries are downgraded at different levels of debt. A nonlinear relationship between sovereign risk premia and the level of government debt emerges in equilibrium, which is in line with the empirical evidence that once risk premia begin to rise, they do so rapidly. Nonlinear simulations show that fiscal austerity measures that aim to balance the government budget in the short run fail to contain the default risk premium, even with sizeable cuts in government purchases; but a long-term plan for fiscal reform, if it credibly changes the market's expectation about future fiscal policies, can alleviate the rising risk premium.     

FISCAL POLICY RULES AND THE SUSTAINABILITY OF PUBLIC DEBT IN EUROPE*

The sustainability of public debt is interpreted as the result of the interaction of fiscal policy with the economic environment, and not as a statistical concept as in most of the recent literature. If debt is not to explode over time, policymakers have to respond to the changing conditions in the macroeconomic environment. This article defines the conditions that will ensure compliance of fiscal policy with the intertemporal budget constraint in the context of Europe's fiscal policy rules. The empirical part of the article reveals that European public debt is sustainable in this respect, but questions regarding long‐run liquidity requirements remain unresolved.     

Fiscal rules and budget forecast errors of Italian municipalities

We study the impact of the domestic stability pact on the accuracy of budget forecasts of Italian municipalities. Identification of the causal effect exploits a quasi-natural experiment generated by the removal in 2001 of the fiscal restraints on budget decisions for municipalities with fewer than 5000 inhabitants and by stricter budgetary restrictions and severe penalties for noncompliers in 2002. We find that relaxing fiscal rules had a sizeable impact on budget forecast errors, especially in 2002. In fact, revenue (expenditure) forecast errors for municipalities with fewer than 5000 inhabitants became 26% (22%) larger than in the past.     

Fiscal policy rules,budget deficits,and forecasting biases

In this paper, we analyze the impact fiscal policy rules have on budget deficits and forecasting biases in official budget outlooks. Persistent budget deficits and over-optimistic budget forecasts have been observed in many countries in the past, especially in the euro area. To prevent such developments from happening in the future, fiscal rules have been revised or implemented with the aim to strengthen both preventive (ex-ante) and corrective (ex-post) elements of fiscal rules frameworks. Do such ex-ante and ex-post rules differ in their effects? In an attempt to answer this question, we build a two-period model and distinguish between ex-ante rules that apply to budget forecasts and ex-post rules that apply to realized budget deficits. Our model indicates that effectively enforced ex-post rules are more effective than ex-ante rules at reducing budget deficits. Interestingly, ex-ante rules differ from ex-post rules in their effects on forecasting biases. Only ex-post sanctions reduce forecasting biases, while ex-ante rules have no impact on such biases. In addition, we show that political stability and the size of government increase the effectiveness of fiscal rules. If, however, financial markets have a disciplining effect on governments, the effectiveness of fiscal rules is reduced. Our results imply that if fiscal policy rules cannot be effectively enforced, reforming other areas such as electoral rules or financial market regulations might be a more promising approach to ensuring sound public finances than fiscal policy rules.     

Study on Medium- and Long-Term Fiscal Policies to Cope with Climate Change under the “Dual Carbon” Goals

Carbon peaking and carbon neutrality constitute an extensive, profound and systemic economic and social change. It is worthwhile to explore how fiscal policy, as a key institutional arrangement in the public policy system to cope with climate change, can play a fundamental and pillar role. Based on literatures, theories and empirical materials, this paper systematically explores the relationship between climate change and public finance. The fiscal impact of climate change will eventually be reflected in fiscal behavior, fiscal costs and fiscal relations, and the fiscal system has the adaptability of an “automatic stabilizer” and the proactiveness to enable the Discretionary Approaches function when facing climate change impacts. This implies such a governance logic of fiscal policy that is systematic, forward-looking and flexible in addressing climate change. In the future, it is necessary to further incorporate climate change or related environmental factors into the fiscal policy framework, target the two key aspects of mitigation and adaptation, and carry out a holistic, systematic and forward-looking reform of the existing fiscal expenditure policy, fiscal revenue policy, fiscal investment and financing policy, government budget system, government procurement policy and ecological compensation policy. While highlighting the “governance” function of fiscal policy in addressing climate change, Chinese government needs to strengthen the coordination and collaboration between fiscal policy tools and other public policies, and magnify the governance effectiveness of fiscal policy in the process of addressing climate change. This paper helps understand the positioning, role and influence of fiscal policy in the process of addressing climate change, provides a basis for better playing the fundamental and underpinning role of the modern fiscal system in the governance of ecological civilization, and presents an analytical framework for building a theoretical system of ecological fiscal governance.     

Balanced-Budget Rules: Welfare Loss and Optimal Policies

Most economic models do not suggest an optimal fiscal policy in which the government's budget is balanced each period. Conventional wisdom suggests that the government run surpluses and deficits to smooth taxes. In this paper, I use an approach which brings together real business cycle theory and the theory of public finance to evaluate the effects of a balanced-budget restriction. Four fiscal policies are investigated in a model with growth. All models are solved numerically using a multidimensional collocation parameterized expectations algorithm. The welfare consequences of each policy are measured, and the optimal Ramsey policies are characterized. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Number: E62.     

我国财政政策非线性效应的 实现机制及动态特征研究

本文基于财政调整时期的内生划分方法，采用STR模型对于我国1980-2012年间财政政策非线性效应的实现机制与动态特征进行实证分析，结果发现：一是我国财政政策非线性效应主要是经由消费渠道发生，而且是通过影响消费者预期产生。二是财政政策非凯恩斯效应在不同条件下与财政政策工具之间的搭配组合存在一定差异。其中，当基本预算余额/潜在GDP小于临界值-0045 0时，财政收入对居民消费需求存在非凯恩斯效应；反之，财政支出表现出一定程度的非凯恩斯效应。三是财政政策调整的幅度是居民消费需求非凯恩斯效应产生的重要因素，但财政政策调整的组成成分与政府的初始债务规模不是非凯恩斯效应产生的先决条件。本文研究结论不仅可以为政府制定财政政策提供理论依据与决策参考，还有助于改善我国财政政策实践的操作效率和运行效果。     

An Assessment of Fiscal Sustainability in Romania

This article analyses Romanian fiscal policy during the 1990s with the main emphasis on the aspect of sustainability of the budget situation. First, the study presents the general development of Romania's economy during the transition period as background for the subsequent policy analysis. Second, the problems of quasi-fiscal subsidies and payment arrears which led to very large quasi-fiscal deficits are highlighted. In the next step, a macroeconomic model is introduced to assess the degree of fiscal sustainability starting with the inter-temporal government budget constraint. The overall deficit for the general government, including central and local governments as well as other institutions belonging to the non-financial public sector, is computed using official statistics. The research findings suggest that Romania has followed an unsustainable fiscal policy in the transition period, particularly up to 1996. In the first half of the 1990s the government financed the deficit partly through seignorage and tried to deal with immediate pressures, preventing social dissatisfaction but neglecting long-term targets. The situation has improved slightly in recent years, nevertheless, there is still much to be done in this area.     

中国改革开放以来财政政策平滑经济波动的能力——基于传统IS-LM模型的实证分析

文章通过借助传统IS-LM模型和比较静态分析方法对中国改革开放以来财政政策平滑经济波动的能力进行了实证分析,得出:(1)财政政策对经济波动的整体平滑能力较低,平均只有6.35%,财政政策的平滑能力在经济波动的不同状态之间存在明显差异;(2)财政政策工具之间的平滑能力存在较大差异,其中财政购买性支出能平滑掉经济初始冲击的11.48%,而财政转移性支出和收入政策整体上反而使经济波动上升近3%;(3)内生性检验表明,中国只有相机性支出政策与经济波动之间存在显著的双向因果关系,不仅如此,相机性支出政策的内外时滞都较短。文章结论的政策含义是,提高中国财政政策稳定效果的关键在于提高政策工具的有效性与相互之间的协同效应,不仅如此,对经济高涨时期政府财政行为进行有效约束也至关重要。