Single Currency in ECOWAS: Is the Proposed Fiscal Convergence Criterion Pro‐Growth?

To facilitate the introduction of a single currency in Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the fiscal convergence criterion currently proposed by countries limits the public deficit to 3 per cent of GDP. According to the literature, the limitation of the public deficit to a given threshold is the most fundamental norm of the various convergence pacts existing and needed for monetary integration. Through a nonlinear panel data model, this paper tests the validity of the threshold by determining the public deficit threshold not to be exceeded so that fiscal policy has a positive effect on economic growth. Over the decade 2007–2016, this threshold is estimated at 4.74 per cent of GDP. Thus, the paper concludes that the proposed convergence criterion of 3 per cent of GDP is pro‐growth. However, in relation to the estimated threshold, there is a room for manoeuvre that can be used for supporting economic growth. Thus, the proposed threshold could be readjusted upward. The analysis also reveals that only four countries in ECOWAS are on the track to respect in the future, the proposed fiscal criterion and therefore are taking an important step toward the adoption of the future currency. The other countries need to make significant fiscal consolidation operations before hoping to adopt the single currency on the basis of fiscal discipline.     

Bridging the Economic Divide Within Countries: A Scorecard on the Performance of Regional Policies in Reducing Regional Income Disparities

Regional inequalities represent a continuing development challenge in most countries. There is a presumption in development economics that decentralized fiscal arrangements would lead to ever-widening regional inequalities. This paper provides an empirical test of this hypothesis. We conclude that regional development policies have failed in almost all countries, federal and unitary alike. Still, federal countries do better in restraining regional inequalities, because of the greater political risk these disparities pose for such countries. Our findings also suggest that countries experiencing divergence tend to focus on interventionist policies, while those experiencing convergence have taken a hands-off approach to regional development and instead focus on promoting an economic union by removing barriers to factor mobility and ensuring minimum standards in basic services across the country.     

A competitive growth of a small midle-income country in the eurozone is far to be assured

The dichotomy of the increasing diversity of eurozone member countries and the institutional “one-size-fits-all” setting has exposed the deficiencies of the institutional economic architecture of the eurozone in the financial and economic crisis of 2008–2010. It has particularly exposed the weaknesses of middle-income countries within this framework. Greece, Ireland, and Portugal are experiencing outright financial crises. This article’s thesis is that small middle-income countries (MICs) in the eurozone face two general macroeconomic problems: (1) there is inherent macroeconomic instability; and (2) there is a problem of “competitiveness and convergence.” Small MICs’ ability to grow and catch up is demand-based and largely export-driven. Price competitiveness is an important factor of competitive growth within the eurozone. A national fiscal policy is crucial to countries’ ability to form and implement national policies for economic stability and competitive growth, which would enable a durable, above-average growth rate. Calls for a fiscal union along with the monetary union may therefore backfire.     

税率变动对财政收入的影响——基于中国经验的实证研究

对于税率与财政收入研究是现在经济学界的一大热点问题。其主要是由于近年来,减税风波几乎卷席全球。在美国次贷危机的影响下,越来越多的国家正在蕴量或已经宣布减税。作者通过对中国、美国、中国台湾地区的税率与财政收入的实证研究,发现了一条包括阿瑟.拉弗(1974)曲线的M曲线。对于这条曲的发现,为大多数国家的调整税率,提供了一个新的思路。     

Mining enclaves and taxation

This paper examines certain macroeconomic effects of major mining projects in developing countries, paying special attention to the case of Papua New Guinea. It goes on to assess the contribution that such projects can make to economic development indirectly through their contributions to government revenue. This paper reviews existing evidence on the linkage effects of foreign investment in mining projects in developing countries and presents as new evidence the results of a study on the macroeconomic effects of major mining projects in Papua New Guinea. Considerable support is found for the proposition that such projects tend to perform as enclaves, having only weak direct links with host national economies. This paper stresses the importance of applying fiscal arrangements which can be expected to appropriate a large share of the mineral rent from intra-marginal mining projects while preserving the incentive to invest. Fiscal arrangements of this type are being applied in Papua New Guinea and are indeed able to capture very large benefits for the country. In Papua New Guinea the enclave nature of large-scale mining projects is consistent with their making large contributions to progress towards national objectives, and this paper argues that given the application of appropriate fiscal arrangements, this conclusion can be extended to other developing countries.     

Social protection and regional convergence in a European Monetary Union

This paper addresses convergence in social protection and GDP in a European Economic and Monetary Union. We evaluate the impact of recently proposed EC social minimum requirements on regional convergence within the EC. Subsequently, we analyze a system of differentiated social norms as a means of raising social protection in countries with lower social standards.     

Assessing convergence to purchasing power parity: A panel study for ten OECD countries

Assessing Convergence to Purchasing Power Parity: A Panel Study for 10 OECD Countries. — The paper analyzes whether post-Bretton Woods real exchange rates of ten OECD countries are nonstationary so that long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) can be considered to hold. A test procedure is proposed which treats the various real exchange rates as a panel but still allows to assess the rate of convergence to PPP for each pair of currencies separately. It is shown that long-run (tradables-) PPP holds between all countries analyzed. Rates of convergence to PPP, however, are found to be quite different across countries. For most of the OECD countries convergence takes place faster than previously indicated.     

Chinese leadership of macroeconomic policymaking in a multipolar world

This paper discusses the kind of leadership in global macroeconomic policymaking that China might provide. The paper describes a form of leadership, which I call ‘concerted unilateralism’, that enables countries to pursue their own objectives, in a way which they would not have been able to do if they were acting on their own, and enables them to achieve a higher level of welfare. I contrast such leadership this with a form of authoritarian leadership in which the leader imposes obligations on other countries which are to the disadvantage of those countries. I argue that China could provide leadership of the first kind, by making use of the G20 Mutual Assessment Process, or G20MAP. In the short term, China might do this by consolidating the ‘2-in-5’ action plan, which Australia instituted within the G20MAP when it was Australia was President of the G20. In the longer term, China might do this by ensuring that there is convergence between the G20MAP and China's own One-Belt-One-Road strategy for international engagement in trade and finance.     

Stable and enforceable: a new fiscal framework for the Euro area

Since the great financial crash, the need for new fiscal rules to prevent unsustainable fiscal policies is universally recognised. In practice such rules, including those in the Stability and Growth Pact, have proved to be impossible to enforce. Thus, to avoid unsustainable fiscal policies reappearing, and to prevent monetary policy from being undermined by undisciplined governments, there is a need for a framework capable of imposing fiscal discipline. This paper considers an intertemporal assignment, where fiscal policy focuses on long-term objectives and monetary policy on short-term stabilisation. We argue for public sector debt targets as a practical way to achieve such a set up, and an excess debt protocol is constructed to give enforceable form to those targets. The ideas of “fiscal space” and optimal debt levels are used to provide a mechanism for identifying a stable region within which the debt targeting regime should operate. Making these factors explicit would both improve the credibility of planned fiscal policies and reduce risk premia on borrowing costs. We finally show how Europe’s competitiveness pact, and debt restructuring operations, can be used to maximise the available fiscal space.     

推进主体功能区建设的财政政策思考

推进主体功能区建设,需要财政政策对区域经济发展中市场机制的失灵领域进行调节,引导资源要素向目标功能区合理流动,以促进目标功能区经济发展方式的转变。研究推进主体功能区建设的财政政策,要对其政策目标、政策工具、政策类型等政策体系进行分析,并提出与主体功能区的功能定位和发展要求相一致的政策思路和政策建议。     

Impact of immigration on the Japanese economy: A multi-country simulation model

To quantify the impacts of immigration and fiscal reconstruction on the Japanese economy, we present a dynamic computable general equilibrium OLG model with an overlapping generations structure. We use a total of 16 countries and regions, both including those that are industrialized, such as Japan, the US, and the EU, and developing countries, such as China, Brazil, the Philippines, and Peru.Our simulation results show that a permanent immigration flows of 150,000 will improve the Japanese economy and the welfare of current and future generations. On the other hand, a standalone increase in the consumption tax will not improve long-run welfare. The results indicate that substantially increased inflows of working-age immigrants would alleviate the need for future fiscal reform and also help to dramatically reduce the public pension burden on the working generations.     

Policy Effectiveness in the Post-ERM Era: Evidence from Six Countries

The objective of this paper is to determine whether ERM-participating countries have experienced a change in the effectiveness of monetary and fiscal policies since the establishment of the ERM. Countries which have come to rely more heavily on fiscal policy instruments as the means of output, price and exchange rate stabilization since the establishment of the ERM (and currently exceed the fiscal criteria) are expected to find the Maastricht fiscal criteria restrictive and perhaps destabilizing. We find that Belgium, Italy and Ireland are the countries that are likely to face the most difficulties.     

The European debt crisis and fiscal reactions in Europe 2000–2014

After the outbreak of the global financial crisis, some governments in the EU experienced serious fiscal problems, while others were less affected. This paper seeks to shed light on the divergent fiscal performance in the EU countries before and after the outbreak of the crisis. Fiscal reaction functions of the primary balance are estimated for different groups of EU countries using quarterly data for the pre-crisis period 2001–2008 and for the crisis period 2009–2014. The pre-crisis estimations reveal some differences in persistence and cyclical reaction between different groups of countries, but in most cases little feedback from the debt stock to the primary balance. The fiscal reaction functions of the countries that eventually developed fiscal problems do not stand out. The estimations on data from the crisis period show largely unchanged persistence and counter-cyclicality but much more feedback from the debt stock, and this applies both to the crisis countries and those less affected. In spite of large deficits and accumulation of debt, the underlying fiscal reaction has become more prudent after the outbreak of the European debt crisis.     

Alliance for production: Mexico's incentives for private sector industrial development

The paper examines the tax-credit programme incorporated in the Industrial Plan introduced by the Lopez-Portillo administration (1976–1982). It discusses the objectives of industrial planning in Mexico at that time, and in particular the attempt to use fiscal incentives to guide private sector investment into priority areas. It argues that a priori the effectiveness of the tax-credit programme set out in the plan is questionable as a means of achieving this objective. Data on recent industrial developments in Mexico are examined to see the degree to which they cast light on the question.     

Macroeconomic Management in Asian-Pacific Developing Countries

This article surveys the literature on macro-economic policy in East Asian and Pacific developing countries. Both internal and external aspects of macroeconomic policy are covered, but greater emphasis is placed on the former. After reviewing regional work on macroeconomic policy objectives and on the conflicts, constraints and trade-offs faced by policy makers, an examination is made of research into target/instrument frameworks for the analsyis and design of policy. Then follow sections dealing with the specific instruments of monetary and fiscal policy. Finally, attention is drawn briefly to topics found in the literature but bypassed in this survey, and to gaps in the regional literature itself.     

Generational accounting in Korea

This paper reassesses the long-term fiscal position of Korea using generational accounting, modified to reflect special features of the Korean fiscal situation, notably prospective changes in public pension benefits due to the pension system's maturation and increasing expenditure on social welfare programs consistent with convergence to levels in other OECD countries. Our findings suggest that unless policy toward existing generations is substantially altered, future generations will face a heavy fiscal burden. For reasonable growth and interest rate assumptions, the difference between 2000 newborns and those born after 2000 ranges from 60 to 180%. We also find that a substantial part of the fiscal burden on future generations is explained by the long-run budgetary imbalances of public pensions and Medical Insurance. J. Japanese Int. Economies 20 (2) (2006) 234–268.     

金融危机前后东盟十国的经济趋同分析

站在区域经济一体化的角度,东盟目前的层次属于较低级的自由贸易区,发展的方向是要要建立经济共同体。而这一努力方向的障碍之一就是东盟10个成员国的发展水平参差不齐,差距十分明显,因此如何缩小成员国之间的差距是东盟现在迫切需要解决的问题。本文从σ趋同、绝对β趋同和俱乐部趋同三个方面对东盟整体及各个分组经济增长的差异性进行全面分析,客观地判断了当前东盟各国的经济趋同、趋异性,为东盟一体化发展战略的研究提供了全面的实证基础依据。     

Budget deficits and money creation: Exploring their relation before Bretton Woods

The sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone has rekindled the use of the North–South (core-periphery) terminology to refer to the heterogeneity of countries belonging to the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In the gold standard literature, this geographical partition had already been employed to oppose the fiscal profligacy and subsequent problems of convertibility of southern countries against the fiscal probity and long convertibility records of their northern counterparts. We provide statistical evidence that the group of countries that, with available data for 1870–1938, exhibited convertibility problems during the classical gold standard, for this reason called the pre-WWI “sometimes-floaters”, shared a pattern of fiscal dominance. This finding for the sometimes-floaters (southern European and South American countries plus Japan) differs from the non-fiscal dominance pattern that we obtain for the pre-WWI “never-floaters” (northern Europe and North America countries) when the Great War and its aftermath years are omitted. We also show that the presence of fiscal dominance was partly due to the lower levels of tax efficiency and political stability in the South.     

The appropriate intermediate target for monetary policy in less developed countries: Empirical evidence

It is argued in this paper that recent financial innovations and deregulation in less developed countries may have established a case for an intermediate target strategy for monetary policy. The question of which financial aggregate to target is not, however, a trivial one. Three criteria have to be met for a financial aggregate to serve as an appropriate target for monetary policy. Using time series data from a sample of six less developed countries, these three criteria are empirically tested to determine whether narrow money, broad money or domestic credit is the most appropriate target for monetary policy in less developed countries. The results indicate that it is difficult to generalize and that until monetary policy can be independent of fiscal policy in these countries, none of the tested financial aggregates would be appropriate as an intermediate target.     

SHOULD SOUTH AFRICA HAVE A FISCAL RULE?

Over the past three decades many countries have struggled to find solutions to their persistent public sector deficits. For some the solution to this problem seemingly became the adoption of fiscal rules. This paper considers the applicability of one such rule, namely the output‐sensitive deficit rule of Taylor, and in particular its applicability to South Africa. The paper shows that its applicability in developing countries such as South Africa might be limited due to higher output volatility that may cause output‐sensitive deficit rules such as the Taylor rule to become more volatile. Such volatility in the deficit/GDP ratio may cause fears that government may not be able to maintain the stability of the debt/GDP ratio, thereby again introducing fiscal unsustainability. To address this problem the paper augments the Taylor rule to reduce the volatility in the public debt/GDP ratio and demonstrates how these rules would have performed in South Africa. It concludes that the augmented fiscal rule might contribute to both fiscal sustainability and economic stability in South Africa.