This paper provides a critical survey of the literature on politico-institutional determinants of the government budget. We organize our discussion around two questions: Why did certain OECD countries, but not others, accumulate large public debts? Why did these fiscal imbalances appear in the last 20 years rather than before? We begin by discussing the “tax smoothing” model and conclude that this approach alone cannot provide complete answers to these questions. We will then proceed to a discussion of political economy models, which we organize in six groups: (i) models based upon opportunistic policymakers and naive voters with “fiscal illusion;” (ii) models of intergenerational redistributions; (iii) models of debt as a strategic variable, linking the current government with the next one; (iv) models of coalition governments; (v) models of geographically dispersed interests; and (vi) models emphasizing the effects of budgetary institutions. We conclude by briefly discussing policy implications.
By discussing the available theoretical and empirical literature, this paper argues that budget procedures and budget institutions do influence budget outcomes. Budget institutions include both procedural rules and balanced budget laws. We critically assess theoretical contributions in this area and suggest several open and unresolved issue. We also examine the empirical evidence drawn from studies on samples of OECD countries, Latin American countries and the United States. We conclude with a discussion of the normative implications of this literature and with some concrete proposals.
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.
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.
A central tenet of the Maastricht Treaty is that a successful European Monetary Union requires sustainable public finances of its member states, yet there is no clear definition of sustainability. This book develops a concept of sustainability focusing on the controllability of public finances. After reviewing the theoretical and empirical arguments for a disaggregate and institutions-oriented approach to correcting non-sustainable deficits, the authors propose a practical procedure to assess the sustainability of a country's public finances.
We study the effects of electoral institutions on the size and composition of public expenditure in OECD and Latin American countries. We present a model emphasizing the distinction between purchases of goods and services, which are easier to target geographically, and transfers, which are easier to target across social groups. Voters have an incentive to elect representatives more prone to transfer spending in proportional systems. The model also predicts higher primary spending in proportional systems when the share of transfer spending is high. After defining rigorous measures of proportionality, we find considerable empirical support for our predictions.
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