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We empirically assess whether a usually expected negative response of private consumption and private investment to a fiscal consolidation is reversed. We focus on a large sample of 174 countries between 1970 and 2018. We also employ three alternative measures of the Cyclically Adjusted Primary Balance used to determine fiscal episodes: i) the IMF-WEO based; ii) the HP-based; and iii) the Hamilton (2018)-based. We find that: i) increases in government consumption have a Keynesian effect on real per capita private consumption; ii) there is a positive effect of tax increases on private consumption when there is a fiscal consolidation; iii) there is a crowding-in effect for private investment, from fiscal contractions. Moreover, expansionary fiscal consolidations occur particularly in highly indebted advanced economies following an increase in taxes. Finally, the negative effect of taxation on private consumption is larger when an economy is experiencing a financial crisis but it is not consolidating.

We empirically assess whether a usually expected negative response of private consumption and private investment to a fiscal consolidation is reversed. We focus on a large sample of 174 countries between 1970 and 2018. We also employ three alternative measures of the Cyclically Adjusted Primary Balance used to determine fiscal episodes: i) the IMF-WEO based; ii) the HP-based; and iii) the Hamilton (2018)-based. We find that: i) increases in government consumption have a Keynesian effect on real per capita private consumption; ii) there is a positive effect of tax increases on private consumption when there is a fiscal consolidation; iii) there is a crowding-in effect for private investment, from fiscal contractions. Moreover, expansionary fiscal consolidations occur particularly in highly indebted advanced economies following an increase in taxes. Finally, the negative effect of taxation on private consumption is larger when an economy is experiencing a financial crisis but it is not consolidating. ; info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Keynesian theory suggests that a reduction in government expenditure has a negative effect on private demand and therefore on output. Contrary, neoclassical theory argues that reduced public expenditure makes room for an expansion of the private sector and thus has a stimulating effect on the economy. Additionally, expectations of a lower tax burden in the future should stimulate consumption. The recent literature discusses that both theories might be right at different times. Especially, during times of fiscal contractions from high levels of debt the economy might react in a neoclassical way. In this paper, we test for non-linear effects of fiscal policy in a Markov-switching approach. We find two different regimes, with a neoclassical regime prevailing around 1972-74, 1979-82 and 1991-93. Furthermore, using time-varying transition probabilities (TVTP) for the Markov process, we test if the neoclassical reaction of private consumption to fiscal variables depends on some variable reflecting the sustainability of the debt path, as theory suggests. We find that the deficit influences the transition to the neoclassical regime, though results are significant only for the sample including the post-unification period.

Doutoramento em Economia ; Throughout this work we empirically analyse three important dimensions of fiscal policy -cyclicality, fiscal forecasts and consolidation episodes. While central government expenditure is, on average, weakly countercyclical in the OECD countries and procyclical in Latin American countries, we find evidence of revenue procyclicality in both groups. Higher levels of income inequality lead to less procyclical policies on the revenue side but are associated with stronger expenditure procyclicality, and better institutions seem unable to mitigate this effect. We also study the track record of fiscal forecasts reported by the EU-15 countries in the context of the Excessive Deficit Procedure. For the budget balance, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) and interest payments, we study the statistical properties of forecast errors and their politico-institutional determinants. While errors in interest and GFCF expenditure present few systematic patterns, budget balance errors are responsive to fiscal institutions and to opportunistic motivations, especially from 1999 onwards: upcoming elections induce over-optimism, whereas commitment or mixed forms of fiscal governance and numerical expenditure rules (but not deficit and debt rules) are associated with greater prudence. Finally, for the EU-27 countries between 1969 and 2006, we assess those factors that help in explaining successful fiscal consolidations. Gradual episodes (3-4 years) are more likely to be successful than cold-shower adjustments (during a single year). The probability of success also increases in the face of cuts in central government current transfers to lower tiers of government. Finally, while successful cold-shower consolidations are characterised, in the years they occur, by a very limited contribution from politically-sensitive expenditure items, such as government wages and social transfers, these items account for nearly half of the primary expenditure adjustment effort during successful gradual fiscal contractions. ; Neste trabalho procedemos à análise empírica de três dimensões da política orçamental -ciclicidade, previsões orçamentais e episódios de consolidação. Enquanto a despesa da Administração Central é, em média, ligeiramente contra-cíclica nos países da OCDE e pro-cíclica na América Latina, encontra-se evidência de prociclicidade das políticas do lado da receita em ambos os grupos de países. A elevada desigualdade de rendimentos conduz a políticas menos pro-cíclicas do lado da receita, mas está associada a uma maior prociclicidade da despesa, sendo que este efeito não parece ser mitigado por melhores instituições. Analisamos também o desempenho das previsões orçamentais reportadas pelos países da UE-15 no contexto do Procedimento dos Défices Excessivos. Para o saldo orçamental, formação bruta de capital fixo (FBCF) e juros pagos, estudamos as propriedades estatísticas dos erros de previsão e os seus determinantes político-institucionais. Enquanto os erros para a despesa com juros e FBCF apresentam poucos padrões sistemáticos, os erros de previsão do saldo orçamental dependem das instituições e de motivações oportunistas, especialmente a partir de 1999: a proximidade de eleições induz sobre-optimismo, enquanto que processos de decisão orçamental baseados em formas ditas de compromisso ou mistas e regras numéricas de despesa (mas não as de défice e dívida) estão associados a uma maior prudência. Finalmente, para os países da UE-27 entre 1969 e 2006, avaliamos os factores que ajudam a explicar o sucesso das consolidações orçamentais. Os episódios graduais (3-4 anos) têm maior probabilidade de sucesso do que os episódios do tipo "cold-shower" (que duram apenas 1 ano). A probabilidade de sucesso também aumenta na presença de reduções nas transferências correntes da Administração Central para outros sub-sectores. Enquanto as consolidações "cold-shower" bem sucedidas se caracterizam, no ano em que ocorrem, por um contributo muito limitado de rubricas de despesa politicamente sensíveis, como os salários da Administração Pública e as transferências sociais, estas rubricas contribuem com cerca de metade do esforço do ajustamento da despesa primária durante as consolidações graduais bem sucedidas.

Many macroeconomists and politicans claim that fi scal austerity – getting the budget deficit down immediately – would be good for employment and growth. We think that fiscal stimulus is expansionary, and fi scal contraction is contractionary. There is a large and growing body of literature that shows that fi scal expansion can help economy to grow and reduce unemployment in near term; that certain types of fi scal stimulus are very effective and that fi scal contractions tend to lower output and employment in the short run. Fiscal austerity may be desirable for the long-term solvency and health of the economy. But it lowers growth and raises unemployment in the near term. A policy mix between new monetary strategy (nominal GDP targeting) and fi scal stimulus would be especially effective.

Hungary has had a remarkably high public debt throughout the transition, and it has continued to increase during recent years, exceeding 80% of the GDP. Its debt and fiscal deficit were the highest among the Visegrád countries during the transition. One factor triggering the debt increase may be elections-related fiscal policies. By analyzing quarterly data for Hungary, we found clear empirical evidence of fiscal expansion before elections and contractions afterwards. These events are widely known as political fiscal cycles. We observed statistically significant incremental increases in fiscal deficits as elections approach, both in nominal and in GDP ratios, followed by contractions after elections. Thus, it can be concluded that incumbents in Hungary are engaged in opportunistic political fiscal cycles by embracing expansionary fiscal policy before parliamentary elections. Our findings also suggest that political fiscal cycles in Hungary may be an underlying factor contributing to the accumulation of public debt.

In this paper, we analyze the reactions of European economies to a fiscal policy strategy aiming at diminishing the public sector. Within the framework of the MSG3 model, a macroeconomic model of the world economy, we perform several simulation experiments to explore the effects of reducing government expenditures permanently in different phases of the business cycle. For this purpose, we combine the fiscal contraction with negative and positive, Euro Area-wide and global, supply and demand shocks. It turns out that adverse Keynesian effects on output and employment tend to be mostly weak and short-lived, whereas long-run effects on output and employment are favorable. Due to these long-run effects, the fiscal contraction policy raises welfare as measured by an asymmetric quadratic objective function. The size of these welfare effects depends on the initial situation in a non-trivial manner.

In this paper, we analyze the reactions of European economies to a fiscal policy strategy aiming at diminishing the public sector. Within the framework of the MSG3 model, a macroeconomic model of the world economy, we perform several simulation experiments to explore the effects of reducing government expenditures permanently in different phases of the business cycle. For this purpose, we combine the fiscal contraction with negative and positive, Euro Area-wide and global, supply and demand shocks. It turns out that adverse Keynesian effects on output and employment tend to be mostly weak and short-lived, whereas long-run effects on output and employment are favorable. Due to these long-run effects, the fiscal contraction policy raises welfare as measured by an asymmetric quadratic objective function. The size of these welfare effects depends on the initial situation in a non-trivial manner.

The macroeconomic outlook for the Euro Area has improved. The first signs of recovery have already started materialising and although the second quarter of 2009 saw GDP contract by 0.2 per cent in quarterly terms, the pace of the decline eased. The first quarter of this year, with GDP collapsing by 2.5 per cent, probably constituted the sharpest contraction in the deepest recession the Euro Area has ever experienced.

AbstractDespite a relatively healthy financial sector, the Japanese economy contracted 6.3% in 2009 during the global financial crisis (GFC) after the Lehman shock, the starkest drop among the OECD countries. Since then, the Japanese economy has been slow to recover, although the Japanese government has implemented multiple economic stimulus packages with a high aggregate value.By tracing the Japanese government's response to the GFC in the critical months of October 2008 through the end of 2009, this study argues that the Japanese government failed to manage the crisis decisively due to institutional constraints derived, ironically, from the experiences that Japan gained from a series of financial crises in the 1990s and 2000s. Financial crisis fatigue constrained the supply of Japan's fiscal and monetary measures against the GFC and slowed political response. Furthermore, it made Japanese society unresponsive to these measures.

In this paper we analyze the impact of austerity policies on long-term growth in countries of the European Union hardest hit by the economic, known crisis with the pejorative acronym PIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain). If the rate of long-term growth in the Eurozone has contracted by 1.4 points during the current crisis, in the case of the PIGS this contraction is in the range 2 – 5.6 points. The causes of this contraction are in the conjunction of nature pro - cyclical factors explaining potential growth, and the recessive bias austerity policies implemented in the European Union since 2010 in response to "the Euro crisis" caused by the distortion of the public accounts in Greece. ; En este artículo analizamos el impacto de las políticas de austeridad sobre el crecimiento a largo plazo en aquellos países de la Unión Europea más castigados por la crisis económica, conocidos con el acrónimo peyorativo PIGS (Portugal, Irlanda, Grecia y España). Si la tasa de crecimiento a largo plazo de la eurozona se ha conaído en 1´4 puntos durante la actual crisis, en el caso de los pIGS esa contracción ha sido de entre 2 y 5´6 puntos. Las causas de esta contración están en el carácter procíclico de los factores explicativos del crecimiento potencial, y en el sesgo recesivo de las políticas de austeridad implementadas.