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 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 Countercyclical Fiscal Policy written by Carlos Budnevich and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Chicago Plan Revisited written by Mr.Jaromir Benes and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the height of the Great Depression a number of leading U.S. economists advanced a proposal for monetary reform that became known as the Chicago Plan. It envisaged the separation of the monetary and credit functions of the banking system, by requiring 100% reserve backing for deposits. Irving Fisher (1936) claimed the following advantages for this plan: (1) Much better control of a major source of business cycle fluctuations, sudden increases and contractions of bank credit and of the supply of bank-created money. (2) Complete elimination of bank runs. (3) Dramatic reduction of the (net) public debt. (4) Dramatic reduction of private debt, as money creation no longer requires simultaneous debt creation. We study these claims by embedding a comprehensive and carefully calibrated model of the banking system in a DSGE model of the U.S. economy. We find support for all four of Fisher's claims. Furthermore, output gains approach 10 percent, and steady state inflation can drop to zero without posing problems for the conduct of monetary policy.

Download or read book Fiscal Adjustments in OECD Countries written by Mr.Alberto Alesina and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1996-07-01 with total page 52 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper studies how the composition of fiscal adjustments influences their likelihood of “success”, defined as a long lasting deficit reduction, and their macroeconomic consequences. We find that fiscal adjustments which rely primarily on spending cuts on transfers and the government wage bill have a better chance of being successful and are expansionary. On the contrary fiscal adjustments which rely primarily on tax increases and cuts in public investment tend not to last and are contractionary. We discuss alterative explanations for these findings by studying both a full sample of OECD countries and by focusing on three case studies: Denmark, Ireland and Italy.

Download or read book The Macroeconomics of Fiscal Policy written by Richard W. Kopcke and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading academics and former policy makers assess the effectiveness of postwar American fiscal policy as questions about the role of fiscal policy once again come to the forefront of economic research and debate. The United States's post-World War II emphasis on activist fiscal policy for short-term economic stabilization was called into question in the 1960s, and by the late 1980s was superseded by the view that fiscal policy should focus on long-run structural concerns. For the past two decades both public policy and economic research emphasized monetary policy as a stabilization tool. But there remain issues in American macroeconomic policy having to do with budget deficits, present and projected, as well as a recent revival of interest in fiscal policy as a stabilization tool. Overall, the academic pendulum is swinging back towards a renewed consideration of fiscal policy. This volume brings together leading researchers and policy makers to assess the effectiveness and consequences of fiscal policy. Drawing on postwar policy experience and recent economic research, this book offers a state-of-the-art consideration of where fiscal policy stands today. Contributors address both the appropriateness of fiscal policy as a tool for short-run macroeconomic stabilization and the longer-term impact of fiscal decisions and economic policy. Topics covered include the legacy of the Reagan administration's tax cuts; whether public policy has encouraged such behavior as "overconsumption," which may foster persistent budget and trade deficits; and, in light of recent experience, how and when fiscal policy might be appropriate as a short-term stabilization tool. Contributors Alan J. Auerbach, Susanto Basu, Olivier J. Blanchard, Alan S. Blinder, Barry P. Bosworth, W. Elliott Brownlee, William H. Buiter, Jonathan Coppel, Jean-Philippe Cotis, Luiz de Mello, James S. Duesenberry, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Eric Engen, Jeffrey A. Frankel, Benjamin M. Friedman, Richard W. Kopcke, Catherine L. Mann, Van Doorn Ooms, Rudolph G. Penner, Alice M. Rivlin, Christopher A. Sims, C. Eugene Steuerle, Geoffrey M.B. Tootell, Robert K. Triest, Edwin M. Truman

Download or read book Regulatory Cycles Revisiting the Political Economy of Financial Crises written by Jihad Dagher and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2018-01-15 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Financial crises are traditionally analyzed as purely economic phenomena. The political economy of financial booms and busts remains both under-emphasized and limited to isolated episodes. This paper examines the political economy of financial policy during ten of the most infamous financial booms and busts since the 18th century, and presents consistent evidence of pro-cyclical regulatory policies by governments. Financial booms, and risk-taking during these episodes, were often amplified by political regulatory stimuli, credit subsidies, and an increasing light-touch approach to financial supervision. The regulatory backlash that ensues from financial crises can only be understood in the context of the deep political ramifications of these crises. Post-crisis regulations do not always survive the following boom. The interplay between politics and financial policy over these cycles deserves further attention. History suggests that politics can be the undoing of macro-prudential regulations.

Download or read book Second Generation Fiscal Rules written by Luc Eyraud and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2018-04-13 with total page 132 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiscal rule frameworks have evolved significantly in response to the global financial crisis. Many countries have reformed their fiscal rules or introduced new ones with a view to enhancing the credibility of fiscal policy and providing a medium-term anchor. Enforcement and monitoring mechanisms have also been upgraded. However, these innovations have made the systems of rules more complicated to operate, while compliance has not improved. The SDN takes stock of past experiences, reviews recent reforms, and presents new research on the effectiveness of rules. It also proposes guiding principles for future reforms to strike a better balance between simplicity, flexibility, and enforceability. Read the blog

Download or read book Inflation and Activity Two Explorations and their Monetary Policy Implications written by Mr.Olivier J. Blanchard and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-11-06 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We explore two issues triggered by the crisis. First, in most advanced countries, output remains far below the pre-recession trend, suggesting hysteresis. Second, while inflation has decreased, it has decreased less than anticipated, suggesting a breakdown of the relation between inflation and activity. To examine the first, we look at 122 recessions over the past 50 years in 23 countries. We find that a high proportion of them have been followed by lower output or even lower growth. To examine the second, we estimate a Phillips curve relation over the past 50 years for 20 countries. We find that the effect of unemployment on inflation, for given expected inflation, decreased until the early 1990s, but has remained roughly stable since then. We draw implications of our findings for monetary policy.

Download or read book Coordination of Monetary and Fiscal Policies written by International Monetary Fund and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1998-03-01 with total page 33 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recently, monetary authorities have increasingly focused on implementing policies to ensure price stability and strengthen central bank independence. Simultaneously, in the fiscal area, market development has allowed public debt managers to focus more on cost minimization. This “divorce” of monetary and debt management functions in no way lessens the need for effective coordination of monetary and fiscal policy if overall economic performance is to be optimized and maintained in the long term. This paper analyzes these issues based on a review of the relevant literature and of country experiences from an institutional and operational perspective.

Download or read book Australia s Fiscal Framework Revisiting Options for a Fiscal Anchor written by Allan Dizioli and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-12-22 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper revisits options for fiscal anchors in Australia against the backdrop of a medium-term budget balance anchor that has led to larger than expected upward drift in the net debt to GDP ratio since the end of the mining investment boom. The IMF’s G20MOD model is used to compare the budget balance anchor with a long-term debt anchor. Using model simulations evaluated against objective macro stabilization-debt control criteria under three likely scenarios for the Australian economy, the latter is found to perform at least as well as the former. The paper also considers the operationalization of a long-term debt anchor utilizing a combination of fiscal rules which includes expenditure restrictions and a flexible time horizon for convergence, aiming at encouraging countercyclical fiscal policy and minimizing the cost in terms of real GDP foregone in the medium term under fiscal consolidation.

Download or read book The Motives to Borrow written by Antonio Fatás and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2019-05-10 with total page 53 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Governments issue debt for good and bad reasons. While the good reasons—intertemporal tax-smoothing, fiscal stimulus, and asset management—can explain some of the increases in public debt in recent years, they cannot account for all of the observed changes. Bad reasons for borrowing are driven by political failures associated with intergenerational transfers, strategic manipulation, and common pool problems. These political failures are a major cause of overborrowing though budgetary institutions and fiscal rules can play a role in mitigating governments’ tendencies to overborrow. While it is difficult to establish a clear causal link from high public debt to low output growth, it is likely that some countries pay a price—in terms of lower growth and greater output volatility—for excessive debt accumulation.

Download or read book Fiscal Adjustment in IMF Supported Programs written by International Monetary Fund. Independent Evaluation Office and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2003-11-17 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a cross-country sample of 169 IMF-supported programs and detailed studies of 15 programs, this evaluation report examines various aspects of fiscal adjustment in IMF-supported programs. It presents evidence that does not support some critics’ view that IMF-supported programs typically adopt a one-size-fits-all approach to fiscal adjustment, nor the perception that programs always involve austerity by targeting reductions in public spending. The report also proposes a number of recommendations for IMF surveillance and program design in the future.

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 Revisiting the Monetary Transmission Mechanism Through an Industry Level Differential Approach written by Sangyup Choi and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2022-01-28 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By combining industry-level data on output and prices with monetary policy rates for a panel of 88 countries, this paper analyzes how the effects of monetary policy vary with certain industry characteristics. Next to being interesting in their own right, our results are informative on the importance of various transmission mechanisms (as they are expected to vary systematically with the included characteristics). Rather than relying on standard monetary policy shock identification, we overcome the endogeneity problem by taking a differential approach (interacting our monetary policy measure with industry-level characteristics). Our results suggest that monetary contractions reduce output by more in industries featuring assets that are more difficult to collateralize (as predicted by the balance sheet channel) and in industries more reliant on international trade (as predicted by the exchange rate channel). Consistent with the financial accelerator mechanism, we find that the balance sheet channel becomes stronger during bad times. At the same time, we do not find evidence supporting the traditional interest rate channel of monetary policy; the same goes for the cost channel.

Download or read book International Macroeconomics in the Wake of the Global Financial Crisis written by Laurent Ferrara and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-06-13 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book collects selected articles addressing several currently debated issues in the field of international macroeconomics. They focus on the role of the central banks in the debate on how to come to terms with the long-term decline in productivity growth, insufficient aggregate demand, high economic uncertainty and growing inequalities following the global financial crisis. Central banks are of considerable importance in this debate since understanding the sluggishness of the recovery process as well as its implications for the natural interest rate are key to assessing output gaps and the monetary policy stance. The authors argue that a more dynamic domestic and external aggregate demand helps to raise the inflation rate, easing the constraint deriving from the zero lower bound and allowing monetary policy to depart from its current ultra-accommodative position. Beyond macroeconomic factors, the book also discusses a supportive financial environment as a precondition for the rebound of global economic activity, stressing that understanding capital flows is a prerequisite for economic-policy decisions.

Download or read book Informality Revisited written by William Francis Maloney and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2003 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author develops a view of the informal sector in developing countries primarily as an unregulated micro-entrepreneurial sector and not as a disadvantaged residual of segmented labor markets. Drawing on recent work from Latin America, he offers alternative explanations for many of the characteristics of the informal sector customarily regarded as evidence of its inferiority.