Expansionary Fiscal Austerity

• Tác giả: Ou Nie
• Ngôn ngữ: eng
• Ký hiệu phân loại: 339.52 Use of fiscal policy
• Thông tin xuất bản: World Bank, Washington, DC, 2020
• Bộ sưu tập: Tài liệu truy cập mở
• ID: 323575
• Chủ đề: 1. DEBT SUSTAINABILITY; 2. ECONOMIC CRISIS; 3. FISCAL CONSOLIDATION; 4. FISCAL POLICY; 5. STRUCTURAL VECTOR AUTOREGRESSION

Tóm tắt

The expansionary fiscal contraction (EFC) hypothesis states that fiscal austerity can increase output or consumption when a country is under heavy debt burdens because it sends positive signal about the country's solvency situation and long-term economic wellbeing. Empirical tests of this hypothesis have suffered from identification concerns due to data sources and empirical methodology. Using a sample of OECD countries between 1978 and 2014, this paper combines new IMF narrative data and the proxy structural Vector Auto-regression (SVAR) method to examine whether fiscal austerities can be expansionary when debt levels are high. Fiscal austerities are measured as 1) narrative fiscal shocks and 2) structural shocks from a proxy SVAR. Additionally, this paper uses a model-based approach to determine the cutoff debt level beyond which EFC is expected to be observed. This paper finds empirical evidence in support of the EFC hypothesis for OECD countries: results for output are driven by changes in tax rates and are robust to how one defines a high-debt regime and how one measures austerity.