Search results for "jel:E6"
showing 10 items of 39 documents
Fiscal Devaluations in EMU
2013
2013SummaryWe use a small open economy general equilibrium model to analyse the effects of a fiscal devalua-tion in an EMU country. The model has been calibrated for the Spanish economy, which is a goodexample of the advantages of a change in the tax mix given that its tax system shows a positive biasin the ratio of social security contributions over consumption taxes. The preliminary empirical evi-dence for European countries shows that this bias was negatively correlated with the current accountbalance in the expansionary years leading up to the 2009 crisis, a period when many EMU membersaccumulated large external imbalances. Our simulation results point to significant positive effects of…
Can fiscal decentralization alleviate government consumption volatility?
2016
We analyse how fiscal decentralization affects the volatility of government consumption extending the existing literature that mainly deals with the effects of the former on government size. Using data for 97 developed and developing countries from 1971 to 2010, we find that a higher degree of fiscal decentralization leads to lower government consumption volatility. This result holds for the sub-sample of advanced economies, while it is not confirmed for those less-developed. This mechanism seems to work mainly through a lower volatility of the non-discretionary spending, which typically belongs to the central government’s policy. We also confirm existing findings according to which country…
What determines the duration of a fiscal consolidation program?
2013
This paper assesses the determinants of the length of fiscal consolidation using annual data for 17 industrial countries over the period 1978-2009. Relying on a narrative approach to identify fiscal consolidation episodes, we show that fiscal variables (such as the budget deficit and the level of public debt) and economic factors (such as the degree of openness, the inflation rate, the interest rate and per capita GDP) are crucial for the fiscal consolidation process. Additionally, we employ duration analysis over a set of consolidation spells and find that, as time goes by, the likelihood of a fiscal consolidation ending is higher. However, the hazard function is not monotonic: indeed, it …
Can fiscal policy stimulus boost economic recovery
2011
We assess the role played by fiscal policy in explaining the dynamics of asset markets. Using a panel of ten industrialized countries, we show that a positive fiscal shock has a negative impact in both stock and housing prices. However, while stock prices immediately adjust to the shock and the effect of fiscal policy is temporary, housing prices gradually and persistently fall. Consequently, the attempts of fiscal policy to mitigate stock price developments (e.g. via taxes on capital gains) may severely de-stabilize housing markets. The empirical findings also point to significant fiscal multiplier effects in the context of severe housing busts, which gives rise to the importance of the im…
The Study, From Romanian Perspective, Regarding the Reform Priorities of the Cohesion Policy
2013
This paper analyses the targets of the Romanian state according to Europe’s 200 Strategy. Being a new Member State, Romania’s targets for 2020 are lower than those of the older members. Even like this, using Eurostat indicators and the Report of World Economic Forum, my purpose is to present a comprehensive view of these differences in target levels and to explain why Romania can’t catch up with its older counter parts until 2020.
Average Tax Rate Cyclicality in OECD Countries: A Test of Three Fiscal Policy Theories
2011
This paper investigates the cyclical properties of the average effective tax rate in 26 OECD countries over 1965-2003 in order to test the validity of three theories of fiscal policy: (i) the standard Keynesian theory which recommends that tax policy should be counter-cyclical, (ii) the Tax Smoothing hypothesis, which implies that changes in GDP should be uncorrelated with tax rates, and (iii) the positive theory of Battaglini and Coate (2008) which predicts that the average tax rate should be negatively correlated with GDP. Our main finding is that the correlations of tax rates with cyclical GDP are generally quite small and statistically indistinguishable from zero. This finding is quite …
How costly are debt crises?
2011
The aim of this paper is to assess the short- and medium-term impact of debt crises on GDP. Using an unbalanced panel of 154 countries from 1970 to 2008, the paper shows that debt crises produce significant and long-lasting output losses, reducing output by about 10 percent after eight years. The results also suggest that debt crises tend to be more detrimental than banking and currency crises. The significance of the results is robust to different specifications, identification and endogeneity checks, and datasets.
Discretionary Fiscal Policies over the Cycle: New Evidence Based on the ESCB Disaggregated Approach
2012
This paper explores how discretionary fiscal policies on the revenue side of the government budget have reacted to economic fluctuations in European Union countries. For this purpose, it uses data on legislated revenue changes and structural indicators provided twice per year by National Central Banks of European Union countries in the ESCB framework for analysing fiscal policy. The analysis is based on the estimation of fiscal policy rules linking these measures of legislated fiscal policy changes to the output gap and other control variables. Then, baseline results are compared with regression estimates where variations of cyclically-adjusted indicators are used as proxy for discretionary…
FISCAL POLICY`S INFLUENCE ON ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
2012
In this paper we study the impact of the fiscal policy on the economic growth for European Union, for the period 2000-2009. This subject represents a very debated problem in the economic literature. Our findings shows that, from the analysis of correlation between economic growth rate and total rate of taxation, there is generally an inverse relationship, meaning that an increase in the tax rate adversely affects economic growth. Continuing the analysis of the correlation between economic growth rate and total tax rate components it can be seen that there is an inverse relationship between labor taxation and capital taxation and economic growth in EU Member States. Both labour and capital t…
Tax Reforms and Labour-market Performance: An Evaluation for Spain using REMS
2009
This paper uses REMS, a Rational Expectations Model of the Spanish economy designed by Boscá et al (2007), to analyse the effects of lowering the overall tax wedge to the level prevailing in the US. Our results partially confirm previous findings in the literature: a reduction in the overall tax wedge of 19.5 points, in order to reach the US levels, has a positive effect in the long run, increasing total hours by about 7 per cent and GDP by about 8 percentage points. In terms of GDP per adult, these results account for 1/4 of the gap with respect to the US, but imply a reduction of only one percentage point in the labour productivity gap. The rise in total hours per adult is explained by a …