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Kein Abstract vorhanden ; + ID der Publikation: hslu_86430 + Art des Beitrages: Bericht + Titel der Reihe: Gemeinschaftsdiagnose (früher: Die Lage der Weltwirtschaft und der Deutschen Wirtschaft) + Nummer des Reihentitels: 1/2020 + Sprache: Deutsch + Letzte Aktualisierung: 2022-03-01 14:17:17

Kein Abstract vorhanden ; + ID der Publikation: hslu_86429 + Art des Beitrages: Bericht + Titel der Reihe: Gemeinschaftsdiagnose (früher: Die Lage der Weltwirtschaft und der Deutschen Wirtschaft) + Nummer des Reihentitels: 2/2020 + Sprache: Deutsch + Letzte Aktualisierung: 2022-03-01 14:17:54

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.

Models of political budget cycles assume that politicians use fiscal policy to increase their chances of re-election. However, empirical results for advanced economies provide ambiguous support for the existence of such electoral cycles. Also, studies focusing on the regional or local level of advanced economies have found a variety of different results. In this paper, we use data at the sub-federal level of Switzerland from 1978 through 2015 to test for the presence of political budget cycles. Swiss regions called cantons are highly autonomous with regard to budgetary policy and have established direct democratic systems with frequent referendums that often affect budgetary issues. In most cantons, there are fiscal policy rules that restrict the budgetary leeway of governments. Overall, the system of government is designed to foster consensus seeking and gradual adjustment. These features should make the short-run opportunistic or partisan use of fiscal policy less likely in Swiss cantons. Rather surprisingly, however, we find at least some evidence for an electoral cycle in government spending. For government revenue or the overall budget, our empirical results do not point to an electoral cycle.

Intangible capital is an increasingly important factor of production in advanced economies. Governments in Europe and elsewhere promote investment in intangible assets. However, the potential role of intangibles for business cycles and the international transmission of shocks is not well understood. In this paper, we investigate the international business cycle effects of intangible capital. To this aim, we build an otherwise standard two-country real business cycle model augmented by a production sector for intangibles and allow for the non-rivalrous use of intangible capital in the production of final output goods and new intangibles. We find that a model including intangibles is associated with international co-movement of tangible investment, which is a feature observed in the data that many models fail to produce.

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. ; The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10368-014-0309-4

Die entwickelten Volkswirtschaften erholen sich nur schleppend von der Finanzkrise. Unter dem Eindruck dieser jüngsten Entwicklungen wird verschiedentlich darauf hingewiesen, dass sich das Wirtschaftswachstum pro Kopf in vielen entwickelten Volkswirtschaften bereits seit den 1980er Jahren verlangsamt hat. Untersuchungen deuten darauf hin, dass dieser Rückgang zu einem bedeutenden Teil auf ein geringes Wachstum der Produktivität zurückzuführen ist. Die Produktionsfaktoren wie Arbeit und Kapital werden zwar laufend produktiver eingesetzt - die Zuwächse sind aber im historischen Vergleich gering. Das abnehmende Produktivitätswachstum dürfte insbesondere seit dem Ausbruch der Finanzkrise im Jahr 2008 auch zu dem in vielen Ländern verhaltenen Anstieg der Unternehmensinvestitionen beigetragen haben. Auch für die kommenden Jahre werden verschiedentlich niedrige Wachstumsraten des Bruttoinlandsprodukts, der Produktivität sowie der Investitionen vorausgesagt. Dies veranlasst einige Ökonomen dazu, von einer möglicherweise säkularen - also lang andauernden - Stagnationsphase zu sprechen. In der wissenschaftlichen und politikberatenden Literatur ist vor diesem Hintergrund eine ausführliche Diskussion entstanden zu den möglichen Ursachen der Wachstumsschwäche und zu geeigneten Politikmaßnahmen zur Abwendung einer möglicherweise länger anhaltenden Phase niedrigen Wirtschaftswachstums. Als geeignete Politikmaßnahmen, um das Wirtschaftswachstum zu fördern, werden häufig bessere Anreize für höhere private Investitionen, eine Steigerung der öffentlichen Investitionen sowie die Förderung von Bildung genannt.

After the global financial crisis, some governments in the EU experienced serious debt financing problems, while others were less affected. This paper seeks to shed light on the divergent fiscal performance by assessing the fiscal conduct 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 post-crisis period 2009-2012. The pre-crisis estimations reveal some differences in persistence and cyclical reaction between different groups of countries, but generally little feedback from the debt stock to the primary balance. The countries that eventually developed fiscal problems do not stand out. The post-crisis estimations show less counter-cyclicality and much more feedback from the debt stock, and these reactions are particularly pronounced for the countries with severe fiscal problems.