Download or read book On the Consequences of Procyclical Fiscal Policy written by Richard McManus and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Procyclical Fiscal Policy written by Toshihiro Ihori and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-12-28 with total page 68 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conventional wisdom dictates that a fiscal policy should be counter-cyclical. However, contrary to this conventional views, recent research has demonstrated that fiscal policy is actually procyclical in most developing countries. In this book, we attempt to propose a new interpretation of this procyclicality after reviewing theoretical and empirical evolution of the research. In particular, by incorporating the political effort behavior of private agents into a weak government model, we explore how income fluctuations affect the optimal budget deficits in a political economy. If the government can control the political behavior, normally, the optimal budget deficit should rise in a recession as a first-best case; however, interestingly, a recession does not necessarily prompt an increase in the budget deficits in a second-best political economy. The response of the budget deficits to income fluctuations mainly depends on the efficiency of political effort, which may correspond to the degree of democracy and bureaucratic efficiency of the governments. We test the prediction of the pro-cyclical fiscal policy and find it applicable for democratic countries with semi-efficient governments including Japan.
Download or read book Procyclical Fiscal Policy Shocks Rules and Institutions A View From MARS written by Paolo Manasse and published by INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper assesses the roles of shocks, rules, and institutions as possible sources of procyclicality in fiscal policy. By employing parametric and nonparametric techniques, I reach the following four main conclusions. First, policymakers' reactions to the business cycle is different depending on the state of the economy-fiscal policy is "acyclical" during economic bad times, while it is largely procyclical during good times. Second, fiscal rules and fiscal responsibility laws tend to reduce the deficit bias on average, and seem to enhance, rather than to weaken, countercyclical policy. However, the evidence also suggests that fiscal frameworks do not exert independent effects when the quality of institutions is accounted for. Third, strong institutions are associated to a lower deficit bias, but their effect on procyclicality is different in good and bad times, and it is subject to decreasing returns. Fourth, unlike developed countries, fiscal policy in developing countries is procyclical even during (moderate) recessions; in "good times," however, fiscal policy is actually more procyclical in developed economies.
Download or read book Why is Fiscal Policy Often Procyclical written by Alberto Alesina and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 62 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many countries, especially developing ones, follow procyclical fiscal polices, namely spending goes up (taxes go down) in booms and spending goes down (taxes go up) in recessions. We provide an explanation for this suboptimal fiscal policy based upon political distortions and incentives for less-than-benevolent government to appropriate rents. Voters have incentives similar to the "starving the Leviathan" classic argument, and demand more public goods or fewer taxes to prevent governments from appropriating rents when the economy is doing well. We test this argument against more traditional explanations based purely on borrowing constraints, with a reasonable amount of success.
Download or read book Flexible Fiscal Rules and Countercyclical Fiscal Policy written by Ms.Martine Guerguil and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2016-01-22 with total page 47 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper assesses the impact of different types of flexible fiscal rules on the procyclicality of fiscal policy with propensity scores-matching techniques, thus mitigating traditional self-selection problems. It finds that not all fiscal rules have the same impact: the design matters. Specifically, investment-friendly rules reduce the procyclicality of both overall and investment spending. The effect appears stronger in bad times and when the rule is enacted at the national level. The introduction of escape clauses in fiscal rules does not seem to affect the cyclical stance of public spending. The inclusion of cyclical adjustment features in spending rules yields broadly similar results. The results are mixed for cyclically-adjusted budget balance rules: enacting the latter is associated with countercyclical movements in overall spending, but with procyclical changes in investment spending. Structural factors, such as past debt, the level of development, the volatility of terms of trade, natural resources endowment, government stability, and the legal enforcement and monitoring arrangements backing the rule also influence the link between fiscal rules and countercyclicality. The results are robust to a wide set of alternative specifications.
Download or read book Determinants and Consequences of Fiscal Procyclicality and Sustainability written by Junho Park and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A countercyclical fiscal policy combined with sustainable fiscal finances is considered to be one of the most important objectives in modern economic policy. However, procyclical fiscal policy is widely observed in practice, especially in emerging market countries. The main purposes of this thesis are to examine the determinants of fiscal procyclicality and sustainability with special reference to the role of fiscal rules, and to assess the impact of both fiscal procyclicality and sustainability on economic growth. This thesis deals with several new issues on fiscal procyclicality and sustainability which have been ignored in the existing literature. We explore the role of the time coverage of fiscal rules in determining fiscal procyclicality and assess the effect of fiscal procyclicality on economic growth across spending categories and country groups. We also attempt to answer the determinants of fiscal sustainability and the effect of fiscal sustainability on economic growth for the first time. Our empirical analyses yield a number of novel and interesting findings. First, we find that government consumption and investment appear to be procyclical while current transfers appear to be countercyclical in a large number of OECD countries. Second, we find that most OECD countries seem to maintain sustainable fiscal finances and several factors such as the growth rate, the level of development, and aging populations could play a role in determining fiscal sustainability. Third, we find that procyclical current expenditure, especially government consumption and current transfers, could have a negative effect on economic growth, and this negative effect is prominent in emerging market countries. We also find that fiscal sustainability does not seem to play any role in economic growth in tranquil times. Finally, we find that the introduction of fiscal rules not only help achieve both countercyclical and sustainable fiscal policy, but also boost economic growth indirectly by stimulating countercyclical fiscal policy. Multi-year fiscal rules contribute more toward mitigating the level of fiscal procyclicality than annual fiscal rules, and fiscal rules with enforceability, such as the Stability and Growth Pact rules, appear to help maintain sustainable fiscal finances.
Download or read book Fiscal Policy in Developing Countries written by Roberto Perotti and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper surveys fiscal policy in developing countries from the point of view of long-run growth. The first section reviews existing methodologies to estimate the effects of fiscal policy shocks and of systematic fiscal policy, with time series or with cross-sectional methods, and their applicability to developing countries. The second section surveys optimal fiscal policy in developing countries, by considering the role of the intertemporal government budget, and sustainability and solvency. It also reviews the fuzzy debate on "fiscal space" and "macroeconomic space" - and the usefulness (or lack thereof) of these terms for policy analysis. The third section asks what theory tells us about the optimal cyclical behavior of fiscal policy in developing countries. It shows that it very much depends on the assumptions about the interactions between credit market imperfections at the individual, firms, or government level, and on the supply of external funds to the country. Different sets of assumptions lead to different implications about optimal cyclical behavior. The available evidence on the cyclical behavior of fiscal policy, and possible reasons for the observed prevalence of a procyclical behavior in developing countries, is also reviewed. If one agrees that fiscal policy is indeed less countercyclical than we think is optimal, the issue is how to correct the problem. One obvious question is why government do not self-insure, i.e. why they do not accumulate assets in upturns and decumulate them in downturns. This leads to the analysis of fiscal rules and stabilization funds, in the fourth section. The last section concludes with what the author considers important research and policy questions in each part.
Download or read book Fiscal Policy Stabilization and Growth written by Guillermo E. Perry and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2007-10-19 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiscal policy in Latin America has been guided primarily by short-term liquidity targets whose observance was taken as the main exponent of fiscal prudence, with attention focused almost exclusively on the levels of public debt and the cash deficit. Very little attention was paid to the effects of fiscal policy on growth and on macroeconomic volatility over the cycle. Important issues such as the composition of public expenditures (and its effects on growth), the ability of fiscal policy to stabilize cyclical fluctuations, and the currency composition of public debt were largely neglected. As a result, fiscal policy has often amplified cyclical volatility and dampened growth. 'Fiscal Policy, Stabilization, and Growth' explores the conduct of fiscal policy in Latin America and its consequences for macroeconomic stability and long-term growth. In particular, the book highlights the procyclical and anti-investment biases embedded in the region's fiscal policies, explores their causes and macroeconomic consequences, and asesses their possible solutions.
Download or read book Revisiting the Countercyclicality of Fiscal Policy written by João Tovar Jalles and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2023-04-29 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper provides a novel dataset of time-varying measures on the degree of countercyclicality of fiscal policies for advanced and developing economies between 1980 and 2021. The use of time-varying measures of fiscal stabilization, with special attention to potential endogenity issues, overcomes the major limitation of previous studies and alllows the analysis to account for both country-specific as well as global factors. The paper also examines the key determinants of countercyclicality of fiscal policy with a focus on factors as severe crises, informality, financial development, and governance. Empirical results show that (i) fiscal policy tends to be more counter-cyclical during severe crises than typical recessions, especially for advanced economies; (ii) fiscal counter-cyclicality has increased over time for many economies over the last two decades; (iii) discretionary and automatic countercyclicality are both strong in advanced economies but acyclical (at times procyclical) in low-income countries, (iv) fiscal countercyclicality operates primarily through the expenditure channel, particularly for social benefits, (vi) better financial development, larger government size and stronger institutional quality are associated with larger countercyclical effects of fiscal policy. Our results are robust to various specifications and endogeneity checks.
Download or read book Do Sovereign Wealth Funds Reduce Fiscal Policy Pro cyclicality New Evidence Using a Non Parametric Approach written by Mr. Ali J Al-Sadiq and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2023-06-23 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The heightened volatility of commodity prices in recent years, reflecting the effects of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, begs the longstanding question of the optimal fiscal policy response to commodity price shocks. Fiscal performance in most commodity-exporting countries is typically shaped by shifts in commodity prices and economic activity, often resulting in procyclical fiscal policy. One way to minimize the procyclicality of fiscal policy is to set up a stabilization Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF). While such funds can help smooth government consumption in good and bad times, the empirical evidence of their value so far has been inconclusive. However, using an unbalanced panel dataset for 182 countries during 1980-2019, with two econometric methods that address the selection-bias problem, we provide robust evidence that stabilization SWFs do indeed help smooth government consumption by reducing fiscal policy volatility associated with commodity price fluctuations.
Download or read book Fiscal Crises written by Mrs.Kerstin Gerling and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-04-03 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A key objective of fiscal policy is to maintain the sustainability of public finances and avoid crises. Remarkably, there is very limited analysis on fiscal crises. This paper presents a new database of fiscal crises covering different country groups, including low-income developing countries (LIDCs) that have been mostly ignored in the past. Countries faced on average two crises since 1970, with the highest frequency in LIDCs and lowest in advanced economies. The data sheds some light on policies and economic dynamics around crises. LIDCs, which are usually seen as more vulnerable to shocks, appear to suffer the least in crisis periods. Surprisingly, advanced economies face greater turbulence (growth declines sharply in the first two years of the crisis), with half of them experiencing economic contractions. Fiscal policy is usually procyclical as countries curtail expenditure growth when economic activity weakens. We also find that the decline in economic growth is magnified if accompanied by a financial crisis.
Download or read book Cyclical Behavior of Fiscal Policy among Sub Saharan African Countries written by Mr.Tetsuya Konuki and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2016-08-24 with total page 39 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excessively procyclical fiscal policy can be harmful. This paper investigates to what extent the fiscal policies of sub-Saharan African countries were procyclical in recent years and the reasons for the degree of fiscal procyclicality among these countries. It finds that a tendency for procyclical fiscal policy was particularly pronounced among oil exporters and after the global financial crisis. It also finds a statistically significant causal link running from deeper financial markets and higher reserves coverage to lower fiscal policy procyclicality. Fiscal rules supported by strong political commitment and institutions seem to be key to facilitating progress for deeper financial markets and stronger reserves coverage.
Download or read book How Can a Country graduate from Procyclical Fiscal Policy written by Jing Xing and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fiscal Policy During Absorption Cycles written by MissGabriela Dobrescu and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2011-02-01 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Domestic absorption cycles are relevant in assessment and design of fiscal policies. Our cross-country analysis covers 59 advanced and emerging countries for the 1990-2009 period. We show that ignoring domestic absorption cycles leads to biased fiscal stance indicators, for both advanced and emerging economies, by up to 1.5 percent of GDP. The estimates of fiscal policy reaction functions indicate that absorption booms are associated with pro-cyclical fiscal policy. We tackle the endogeneity problem in reactions functions through stripping the cyclical component of the fiscal aggregates. We also find that simple filtering methods in the computation of absorption gaps perform as better as indirect methods of estimating trade balance gaps and stripping of output gaps.
Download or read book Stochastic Trends Debt Sustainability and Fiscal Policy written by Karim Barhoumi and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 45 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We study empirically the reaction of fiscal policy to changes in the permanent and transitory components of GDP in a panel of countries. We find evidence that government spending tends to be counter-cyclical conditional on temporary shocks and pro-cyclical conditional on permanent shocks. We also find no evidence that developing countries are systematically different from developed ones in terms of fiscal policy. We present a theory featuring a fiscal reaction function to the output gap and a measure of debt sustainability. The fiscal impulse response to a permanent (temporary) shock to GDP is positive (negative) as the effect on debt sustainability (current output gap) dominates. The results are mostly sensitive to the relative weight of debt sustainability in the fiscal reaction function as well as to the extent of real rigidities in the economy.
Download or read book Fiscal Policy and Long Term Growth written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-04-20 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper explores how fiscal policy can affect medium- to long-term growth. It identifies the main channels through which fiscal policy can influence growth and distills practical lessons for policymakers. The particular mix of policy measures, however, will depend on country-specific conditions, capacities, and preferences. The paper draws on the Fund’s extensive technical assistance on fiscal reforms as well as several analytical studies, including a novel approach for country studies, a statistical analysis of growth accelerations following fiscal reforms, and simulations of an endogenous growth model.
Download or read book Can Statistical Capacity Building Help Reduce Procyclical Fiscal Policy in Developing Countries written by Mr.Sampawende J Tapsoba and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few papers have attempted to assess the role of “capacity,” especially in the area of macroeconomic statistics. Consequently, we make an attempt to advance this literature through the construction of a “statistical capacity building index,” and then test its explanatory power on the cyclicality of government spending. Using panel data from 62 developing countries, we find evidence that improvements in this index are associated with less procyclicality of government spending over the period 1990–2012; with the significance of this relationship dependent upon the quality of administrative and technical capacity of budgetary institutions.
