Following the Great Recession, U.S. government debt levels exceeded 100% of output. We develop a macroeconomic model to evaluate the role of various shocks during and after the Great Recession; labor market shocks have the greatest impact on macroeconomic activity. We then evaluate the consequences of using alternative fiscal policy instruments to implement a fiscal austerity program to return the debt-output ratio to its pre-Great Recession level. Our welfare analysis reveals that there is not much difference between applying fiscal austerity through government spending, the labor income tax, or the consumption tax; using the capital income tax is welfare-reducing.
Following the Great Recession, U.S. government debt levels exceeded 100% of output. We develop a macroeconomic model to evaluate the role of various shocks during and after the Great Recession; labor market shocks have the greatest impact on macroeconomic activity. We then evaluate the consequences of using alternative fiscal policy instruments to implement a fiscal austerity program to return the debt-output ratio to its pre-Great Recession level. Our welfare analysis reveals that there is not much difference between applying fiscal austerity through government spending, the labor income tax, or the consumption tax; using the capital income tax is welfare-reducing.
Following the Great Recession, U.S. government debt levels exceeded 100% of output. We develop a macroeconomic model to evaluate the role of various shocks during and after the Great Recession; labor market shocks have the greatest impact on macroeconomic activity. We then evaluate the consequences of using alternative fiscal policy instruments to implement a fiscal austerity program to return the debt-output ratio to its pre-Great Recession level. Our welfare analysis reveals that there is not much difference between applying fiscal austerity through government spending, the labor income tax, or the consumption tax; using the capital income tax is welfare-reducing.
Following the Great Recession, U.S. government debt levels exceeded 100% of output. We develop a macroeconomic model to evaluate the role of various shocks during and after the Great Recession; labor market shocks have the greatest impact on macroeconomic activity. We then evaluate the consequences of using alternative fiscal policy instruments to implement a fiscal austerity program to return the debt-output ratio to its pre-Great Recession level. Our welfare analysis reveals that there is not much difference between applying fiscal austerity through government spending, the labor income tax, or the consumption tax; using the capital income tax is welfare-reducing.
Following the Great Recession, U.S. government debt levels exceeded 100% of output. We develop a macroeconomic model to evaluate the role of various shocks during and after the Great Recession; labor market shocks have the greatest impact on macroeconomic activity. We then evaluate the consequences of using alternative fiscal policy instruments to implement a fiscal austerity program to return the debt-output ratio to its pre-Great Recession level. Our welfare analysis reveals that there is not much difference between applying fiscal austerity through government spending, the labor income tax, or the consumption tax; using the capital income tax is welfare-reducing.
Following the Great Recession, U.S. government debt levels exceeded 100% of output. We develop a macroeconomic model to evaluate the role of various shocks during and after the Great Recession; labor market shocks have the greatest impact on macroeconomic activity. We then evaluate the consequences of using alternative fiscal policy instruments to implement a fiscal austerity program to return the debt-output ratio to its pre-Great Recession level. Our welfare analysis reveals that there is not much difference between applying fiscal austerity through government spending, the labor income tax, or the consumption tax; using the capital income tax is welfare-reducing.
Following the Great Recession, U.S. government debt levels exceeded 100% of output. We develop a macroeconomic model to evaluate the role of various shocks during and after the Great Recession; labor market shocks have the greatest impact on macroeconomic activity. We then evaluate the consequences of using alternative fiscal policy instruments to implement a fiscal austerity program to return the debt-output ratio to its pre-Great Recession level. Our welfare analysis reveals that there is not much difference between applying fiscal austerity through government spending, the labor income tax, or the consumption tax; using the capital income tax is welfare-reducing.
The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) institutions are consistentwith a New Consensus that emerged in the 1980s, limitingthe role for macroeconomic (particularly fiscal) policy to short termstabilizations by means of rules. I will argue that the policy inertiainduced by the Consensus may have played a role in the disappointingperformance of EMU economies even before the crisis.The crisis of the Consensus, and the debate on secular stagnation,proved that Keynesian (and possibly) persistent excesses of savingsover investment may hamper growth. This has put fiscal policy backto the center of the scene, and given the General Theory, at eighty, asecond youth. I will argue therefore that the EMU fiscal rule should beamended to allow semi-permanent negative government savings. I willfinally argue that a modified Golden Rule may serve this objective,and allow EU-wide policy coordination. This seems the only reasonablereform with some chances of being adopted by the EU dividedpolicy makers.
The Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) institutions are consistentwith a New Consensus that emerged in the 1980s, limitingthe role for macroeconomic (particularly fiscal) policy to short termstabilizations by means of rules. I will argue that the policy inertiainduced by the Consensus may have played a role in the disappointingperformance of EMU economies even before the crisis.The crisis of the Consensus, and the debate on secular stagnation,proved that Keynesian (and possibly) persistent excesses of savingsover investment may hamper growth. This has put fiscal policy backto the center of the scene, and given the General Theory, at eighty, asecond youth. I will argue therefore that the EMU fiscal rule should beamended to allow semi-permanent negative government savings. I willfinally argue that a modified Golden Rule may serve this objective,and allow EU-wide policy coordination. This seems the only reasonablereform with some chances of being adopted by the EU dividedpolicy makers.
While in J. Buchanan clubs theory, the decentralized governments should supply only public goods suited to their spatial dimension, for G. Tullock the decentralization should prevail over spatial dimension of the public goods to broaden individuals" control on government. For A. Peacock too, devolution responds to the demand of participation against the irrelevance of the individuals in centralization, but an extended "dispersive revolution" might increase rather than decrease the "government failures". Under Coase theory of the firm, applied to the government as firm, contracting out is limited by the cost of the deterioration of the power control. We here, therefore, investigates the impact of the quantitative dimension of fiscal decentralization on the political robustness of the considered states in term of fragility, for 10 European Union (EU) ex-communist countries, over the period 1995-2012, by a panel-model approach. The main results show that between state fragility and fiscal decentralization there is a relationship with inverted-U and U shapes, analogous to the BARS (Barro, Armey, Rahn, and Scully) curve relating the government size to GDP growth. Fragility is low under reduced revenues inequality and inflation rate, and rises when the urbanization and democratization decrease, under given level of political rights. The relation between the fragility curve and the BARS curve may need further research. The relation between the fragility curve and the BARS curve may need further research.
This paper investigates the effect of terrorism on fiscal policy volatility in developing countries. Using both cross-country and panel data analysis for 66 countries from 1970 to 2012, we find that an increase in the number of terrorist incidents raise the volatility of the discretionary component of fiscal policy. In addition, the analysis shows that fiscal volatility is positively influenced by the volatility of output growth, the consumer price inflation volatility, the degree of fractionalization of both the government and the opposition. The results also show that the volatility is higher is countries of small size and lower in more democratic countries. Our results are robust to reverse causality, endogeneity bias and the presence of various controls. This paper complements and extends the previous literature by providing the evidence that terrorism substantially increases the uncertainty surrounding the conduct of fiscal policy in developing countries.
Etudes & documents ; This paper examines the cyclicality of provincial expenditure in China during the period 1978-2013. We assess whether provincial expenditure has been pro-cyclical using panel data for our analysis. Profligacy is found to be a regular feature of provincial fiscal policy. This profligacy occurs both in good and bad times and has markedly increased since 1994 with the increased autonomy of provinces. We further find that the profligacy bias is mitigated when financial constraints are relaxed, the remaining political life of the governor is long, government efficiency is strong, corruption incidence is low, and governments are large.
This paper investigates the effect of terrorism on fiscal policy volatility in developing countries. Using both cross-country and panel data analysis for 66 countries from 1970 to 2012, we find that an increase in the number of terrorist incidents raise the volatility of the discretionary component of fiscal policy. In addition, the analysis shows that fiscal volatility is positively influenced by the volatility of output growth, the consumer price inflation volatility, the degree of fractionalization of both the government and the opposition. The results also show that the volatility is higher is countries of small size and lower in more democratic countries. Our results are robust to reverse causality, endogeneity bias and the presence of various controls. This paper complements and extends the previous literature by providing the evidence that terrorism substantially increases the uncertainty surrounding the conduct of fiscal policy in developing countries.
Etudes & documents ; This paper examines the cyclicality of provincial expenditure in China during the period 1978-2013. We assess whether provincial expenditure has been pro-cyclical using panel data for our analysis. Profligacy is found to be a regular feature of provincial fiscal policy. This profligacy occurs both in good and bad times and has markedly increased since 1994 with the increased autonomy of provinces. We further find that the profligacy bias is mitigated when financial constraints are relaxed, the remaining political life of the governor is long, government efficiency is strong, corruption incidence is low, and governments are large.
We build an agent-based model to study how fiscal multipliers can change over the business cycle. Our approach considers the economy as a complex evolving system. In that, fiscal state-dependent multipliers are emergent disequilibrium phenomenon stemming from the interaction among an ecology of heterogeneous agents. We study fiscal multipliers in response to dfferent microeconomic shocks hitting the economy. We show that defficit-spending fiscal policy dampens the effect of a shock and lowers its persistence. Moreover, we show that the size and dynamics of the fiscal multi- plier is inversely related to the evolution of credit rationing in the aftermath of the shock. We also investigate the effects of two different balanced budget rules. In the first type of such experiments, government expenditure is constrained to be equal to tax revenues of each period. In the second one the tax rate is eventually raised to balance a given level of government expenditure. We show that fiscal multipliers are very low with both balanced-budget rules. Finally, we show that fiscal multipliers are higher into more leveraged economies.
