Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process

A widespread view in the ‘political budget cycles’ literature is that incumbent politicians seek to influence voters’ perceptions of their competence and/or preferences by using the composition of the fiscal budget as a signalling tool. However, little is known about whether voters actually receive and perceive the signal in that way. To empirically assess the relevance of the signalling channel at the municipal level, we conducted a survey among 2000 representative German citizens in 2018. Only a small fraction of voters feel well-informed about the fiscal budget signal and use the information it contains to decide whether to vote for the incumbent politician. Persons paying more attention to the signal sent by local politicians live in smaller municipalities, are more satisfied with their economic situation, are more educated, and do not feel that they are being electorally manipulated. Our analysis raises doubt about the relevance of budget composition as a signalling mechanism for voters at the local level.     

Debt sustainability in emerging market countries: Some policy guidelines from a fan-chart approach

This paper uses a probabilistic approach to simulate the medium-term public debt trajectories of several major emerging market countries. We extend the standard debt sustainability analysis framework so as to more faithfully reproduce these countries’ economic reality in two aspects. First, we allow them to differ in the cyclical stance of their fiscal policy and in their degree of fiscal responsiveness to debt. Second, we explicitly integrate the specific risk premium paid by each country when borrowing in foreign currency. It allows us to evaluate the impact of alternative policies that the government may consider to improve sustainability. The results lead to three policy recommendations: i) a country should consider decreasing its exposure to currency risk only in extreme cases (like Argentina); ii) on the contrary, greater fiscal responsiveness (i.e. stronger fiscal tightening whenever there is a debt increase) could enhance sustainability to a much greater extent; iii) countries with low responsiveness to debt or a poor fiscal consolidation track record should be cautious with countercyclical fiscal policies, as they may trigger an unsustainable debt trajectory in the trough of the economic cycle.     

Macroeconomic impacts of fiscal policy shocks in the UK: A DSGE analysis

This paper develops and estimates a new-Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model for the analysis of fiscal policy in the UK. We find that government consumption and investment yield the highest GDP multipliers in the short-run, whereas capital income tax and public investment have dominating effect on GDP in the long-run. When nominal interest rate is at the zero lower bound, consumption taxes and public consumption and investment are found to be the most effective fiscal instruments throughout the analysed horizon, and capital and labour income taxes are established to be the least effective. The paper also shows that the effectiveness of fiscal policy decreases in a small open-economy scenario and that nominal rigidities improve effectiveness of public spending and consumption taxes, whereas decrease that of income taxes.     

Asymmetric effects of fiscal policy in EU and OECD countries

In this article, we take account of an evaluation of the short- and medium-term effects of the transmission mechanism of fiscal policy in EU and OECD countries and their dependence on the state of the economy and fiscal behaviour. Our findings indicate that (i) across EU member states the impact of government spending on economic performance is larger in the accession than in core member states, (ii) since the onset of the economic/financial crisis the government spending multipliers have become larger in both core and accession EU member states, and (iii) a comparison with fiscal responses in the OECD countries shows robustness of our estimates. The conclusion implies that the austerity measures present a substantial drag for economic activity in accession EU countries. Thus, we may state that not considering the fiscal behaviour and state of the economy gives misleading fiscal multiplier effects, which in turn lead to the adoption of inappropriate fiscal measures that even worsen a country's economic situation.     

宁夏政府医疗补助的受益归属

目的 测算宁夏不同收入人群医疗补助受益水平及公平性.方法 采用受益归属分析法测算补助受益分布,集中指数和Kakwani指数法分析其受益公平性.结果 宁夏人均财政医疗卫生支出呈逐年上涨趋势.最低组人群平均受益额高于最高组.2016年和2018年门诊和与住院的集中指数与Kakwani指数为负值,公平性较好,具有累进性.结论...     

Welfare costs of reclassification risk in the health insurance market

We assess the quantitative importance of reclassification risk in the US health insurance market. Reclassification risk arises because the health conditions of individuals evolve over time, while a typical health insurance contract only lasts for one year. Thus, a change in the health status can lead to a significant change in the health insurance premium. We measure welfare gains from introducing explicit insurance against this risk in the form of guaranteed renewable health insurance contracts. We find that in the current institutional environment individuals are well-sheltered against reclassification risk and they only moderately gain from having access to these contracts. More specifically, we show that employer-sponsored health insurance and public means-tested transfers play an important role in providing implicit insurance against reclassification risk. If these institutions are removed, the average welfare gains from having access to guaranteed renewable contracts exceed 4% of the annual consumption.     

中国城市扩张的财政激励——基于1998～2009年我国省级面板数据的实证分析

基于我国1998～2009年的省级面板数据,运用广义矩估计法(GMM),实证分析了财政分权、转移支付与当前地方政府城市扩张之间的关系。研究表明:"中国式"的财政分权体制是造成城市快速扩张的重要原因,而现有的财政转移支付并不能有效逆转这种趋势,改革现有的财政体制与政府治理体制才是解决问题的根本之道。研究还表明,我国的财政分权与转移支付效应存在明显的地区差异和跨时差异。同时,财政分权与转移支付对城市扩张存在着相互影响,转移支付的增加会降低财政分权的效应,财政分权度的提高也会减缓转移支付的作用。     

合理设计生态税,有效保护环境

改革开放带来中国经济的高速发展,同时也不可避免地带来了环境问题。如何采取切实的手段保护环境成为政府、学者及公众关心的话题。文章以环境保护为出发点,试图通过建立有效的生态税制度,直接或间接将环境的损害者和受益者纳入到税收体系,从而引导、规范纳税人的行为,以保证环保政策的有效执行。     

Minimac : A small integrated model of the financial and real sectors of the Swedish economy

The model emphasizes the financial part of the economy and the channels through which the central bank and the government can affect it. The model combines a complete flow of fund matrix with an income–expenditure scheme in a common framework. The consistency of the flow of funds matrix is achieved through residual determination of one asset/liability from each financial balance identity. The model describes the Swedish credit market after the abolition of credit market regulation. Thus the policy instruments included comprise – among others – the interest rate scale, the cash reserve requirement, the exchange rate, government consumption and differential tax rates but no direct regulation of bank advances or investment in government securities. The model mechanisms are illustrated with policy simulations. Those display, in some instances, processes which after some periods tend to reverse the intended effects of the original policy measure. They therefore point to the need for a strategy which involves a sequential use of several policy instruments.