Suchergebnisse

The international monitoring of public finances in EMU member states is an essential element of the Stability and Growth Pact. Part of evaluating government budgets involves determining the sustainability of the envisaged consolidation measures. The academic and political debate on this topic emphasises various criteria which suggest persistent consolidation efforts. The academic literature stresses the contribution which government consumption and transfer payments make to reducing the deficit. The literature . also indicates a significant reversal in previous trends which had been responsible for expanding the deficit. In its Convergence Report of 1998 and in background studies, the European Commission cited the reduction of primary expenditure as a criterion of sustainability. Although various criteria have been mentioned in the debate, it is important to note that the empirical support for these criteria is based largely on the same data and methods, which are subject to certain shortcomings . ; Die internationale Überwachung der Entwicklung öffentlicher Finanzen in den Mitgliedstaaten der EWWU ist wesentlicher Bestandteil des Stabilitäts-und Wachstumspaktes. Teil der Bewertung der Staatshaushalte ist es, die Dauerhaftigkeit der angestrebten Konsolidierungsmaßnabmen zu beurteilen. Die wissenschaftliche und politische Diskussion zu diesem Thema betont verschiedene Kriterien, die auf anhaltende Konsolidierungsbemübungen hinweisen. In der wissenschaftlichen Literatur wird zum einen der Beitrag des Regierungskonsums und der Transferleistungen zur Verringerung des Defizits hervorgehoben. Darüber hinaus verweist die Literatur darauf, daß die Umkehrung vorheriger Trends, die für die Ausweitung des Defizits verantwortlich waren, von Bedeutung ist. Die Europäische Kommission hat in ihrem Konvergenzbericht von 1998 und in Hintergrundstudien die Reduzierung der primären Ausgaben als Nachhaltigkeitskriterium genannt. Obwohl verschiedene Kriterien in der Diskussion genannt werden, ist festzustellen, daß die empirische Fundierung dieser Kriterien weitgehend auf denselben Daten und Methoden beruhen, mit denen sich aber gewisse Nachteile verbinden .

Die "dauerhaft tragfähige Finanzlage" der Mitgliedstaaten ist eine zentrale Voraussetzung für die europäische Wirtschafts- und Währungsunion. Der Vertrag von Maastricht gibt jedoch nur unzureichende Bewertungsmaßstäbe an die Hand, wenn Mitgliedstaaten die Referenzwerte für die öffentlichen Defizite und Schuldenstände überschreiten. Ebensowenig findet die Europäische Kommission in ihrem Konvergenzbericht ein adäquates analytisches Instrument, um die Nachhaltigkeit der sehr kurzen Konsolidierungsanstrengungen in den Mitgliedstaaten zu erfassen. Die Arbeit stellt ein Konzept einer auf Dauer tragfähigen Finanzlage vor, anhand dessen überprüft werden kann, ob eine Regierung nach dem Auftreten eines übermäßigen Defizits die Kontrolle über die öffentlichen Finanzen wiedergewonnen hat. Ausschlaggebend ist, ob die Regierung die fiskalpolitischen und institutionellen Ursachen für die Verschlechterung der Finanzlage konsequent beseitigt. Dieses Konzept wird in Form eines mehrstufigen Bewertungsschemas operationalisiert und auf die EU-Mitgliedstaaten angewandt. Die Ergebnisse der Bewertung unterscheiden sich markant von den Empfehlungen der Europäischen Kommission.

In this paper we assess the importance given in capital markets to the credibility of the European fiscal framework. We evaluate to which extent relevant fiscal policy events taking place in the course of 2002 produced a reaction in the long-term bond segment of the capital markets. Firstly, we identify the fiscal policy events and qualitatively assess the views of capital market participants. Secondly, we estimate the impact of these fiscal events on the interest rate swap spreads, which is our measure for the risk premium. According to our results the reaction of swap spreads, where it turned out to be significant, has been mostly around five basis points or less.

In this paper we assess the importance given in capital markets to the credibility of the European fiscal framework. We evaluate to which extent relevant fiscal policy events taking place in the course of 2002 produced a reaction in the long-term bond segment of the capital markets. Firstly, we identify the fiscal policy events and qualitatively assess the views of capital market participants. Secondly, we estimate the impact of these fiscal events on the interest rate swap spreads, which is our measure for the risk premium. According to our results the reaction of swap spreads, where it turned out to be significant, has been mostly around five basis points or less.

The debate on the sustainability of public finances is closely related to the analysis of the financial and macroeconomic consequences of government debt accumulation. Focusing on the USA, Germany and Italy over the 1983-2003 period, the central issue addressed in this paper is how the accumulation of government debt affects long-term interest rates, both nationally and across borders. The analysis is based on a small, multivariate econometric model, which allows us to disentangle the more permanent and transitory components of interest rate developments. Empirical evidence shows that in all cases a more sustained debt accumulation leads at least temporarily to higher long-term interest rates. This transitory impact also spills-over into other countries, mainly from the US to the two European countries.

In Lisbon the European Council proclaimed a European growth strategy. It considers an average economic growth rate of around 3 percent as a realistic prospect for the coming years and assigns public finances an important role in the process of achieving this goal. This paper addresses the question whether we can find empirical evidence for European countries that public finance reform affects trend growth. Focusing on time series patterns, we investigate whether there have been persistent shifts or trends in economic growth and fiscal variables over the last 40 years. In addition, we estimate a distributed lag model, which 1) indicates that government consumption and transfers negatively affect growth rates of GDP per capita over the business cycle, while public investment has a positive impact, and 2) provides robust evidence that distortionary taxation affects growth in the medium-term through its impact on the accumulation of private physical capital.

German public finances are currently subject to considerable changes in the macro-economic environment and this is probably only the beginning of more far-reaching developments in the future. Like many other European countries, Germany, on the one hand, faces the fiscal problems emerging from an ageing population, which will put upward pressure on social security expenditures. On the other hand, the public will reject an increase of the already high tax burden and an increasingly globalized economy and further European integration may put an additional limit on the government's capability to raise additional revenues. Finally, German governments will have to show whether they are able to meet these conflicting challenges in the future within the fiscal framework set by the Maastricht Treaty and the Stability and Growth Pact. Therefore, continued debt accumulation does not seem to be a viable option to circumvent the ageing problem and the limit on taxation. Thus we see three challenges for German public finances in the future. In this paper, we develop the recent history of German fiscal policy as a background to judging how fit Germany is to meet these challenges. Our main focus is on the government's fiscal strategies and the gradual erosion of the institutions that secured Germany's fiscal stability in the past.

This paper uses a new data set on budgetary institutions in Europe to examine the impact of fiscal rules and budget procedures in EU countries on public finances. It briefly describes the main pattern of budgetary institutions and their determinants across the EU 15 member states. Empirical evidence for the time period 1985-2004 suggests that the centralisation of budgeting procedures restrains public debt. In countries with one-party governments or coalition governments where parties are closely aligned and where political competition among them is low, this is achieved by the delegation of decision-making power to the minister of finance. Fiscal contracts that require countries to set multi-year targets and that reinforce those targets increase fiscal discipline in countries with ideologically dispersed coalitions and where parties regularly compete against each other.

We analyse the performance of budgetary and growth forecasts of all stability and convergence programmes submitted by EU member states over the last decade. Differences emerge for the bias in budgetary projections across countries. As a second step we explore whether economic, political and institutional factors can explain this pattern. Our analysis indicates that the cyclical position and the form of fiscal governance are major determinants of forecast biases. Projected changes in the budgetary position are mainly affected by the cycle, the need of convergence before EMU and by electoral cycles.

This paper examines the development of fiscal rules and budget procedures in EU countries, and their impact of public finances since the mid-1980s. It presents a new data set on institutional reforms and their impact in Europe. Empirical pattern confirm our prediction that more stringent fiscal rules exist under large coalition governments, while the centralisation of budgetary procedures is the main form of fiscal governance elsewhere. In addition, the centralisation of procedures does not restrain public debt in countries more prone to a rules-based approach, whereas more stringent fiscal rules seem to support fiscal discipline in almost all EU countries.

Current best practice in central banking views a high level of monetary policy predictability as desirable. A clear distinction, however, has to be made between short-term and longer-term predictability. While short-term predictability can be narrowly defined as the ability of the public to anticipate monetary policy decisions correctly over short horizons, the broader, ultimately more meaningful concept of longerterm predictability also encompasses the ability of the private sector to understand the monetary policy framework of a central bank, i.e. its objectives and systematic behaviour in reacting to different circumstances and contingencies. In this broader sense, longer-term predictability is also closely related to the credibility of the central bank. This paper reviews the main conceptual issues relating to predictability, both in its short and longer-term dimensions, and discusses how a transparent monetary policy strategy can be – and indeed has been – instrumental in achieving this purpose. This latter aspect is investigated in an overview of the empirical literature, highlighting how financial markets have been increasingly able to correctly anticipate monetary policy decisions for a number of large central banks, including the ECB. The paper also reviews several possible empirical proxies for the less-explored concept of longer-term predictability, which is inherently more diffi cult to measure.