Fiscal Policy And Long Term Growth

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.

This paper discusses in a systematic and comprehensive way the existing literature on the relationship between the growth of countries’ economies and various public finance instruments, such as tax policy, expenditure policy, and overall budgetary policy, from the perspectives of allocative efficiency, macroeconomic stability, and income distribution. It reviews both the conceptual linkages between each of the instruments and growth and the empirical evidence on such relationships. It broadly concludes that fiscal policy could play a fundamental role in affecting the long-run growth performance of countries.

Worldwide experience highlights public finance policies that promote economic growth while meeting the need for fundamental public goods. Macroeconomic stability is essential, as large budget deficits retard growth, followed by moderate levels of public spending - around one-third of GDP or less - especially when governance and public administration are weak; that in turn requires efficiency, particularly in areas such as infrastructure, health, education, and social protection; finally, lower income and payroll tax rates can spur investment and employment. The Eastern European and Central Asia countries pioneered flat income taxes without generally suffering revenue losses as a result, but they have not addressed the problem of high payroll taxes and still face many hurdles in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of public spending and revenue generation.

The recent recession has brought fiscal policy back to the forefront, with economists and policy makers struggling to reach a consensus on highly political issues like tax rates and government spending. At the heart of the debate are fiscal multipliers, whose size and sensitivity determine the power of such policies to influence economic growth. Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis focuses on the effects of fiscal stimuli and increased government spending, with contributions that consider the measurement of the multiplier effect and its size. In the face of uncertainty over the sustainability of recent economic policies, further contributions to this volume discuss the merits of alternate means of debt reduction through decreased government spending or increased taxes. A final section examines how the short-term political forces driving fiscal policy might be balanced with aspects of the long-term planning governing monetary policy. A direct intervention in timely debates, Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis offers invaluable insights about various responses to the recent financial crisis.

This is an applications-oriented text that demystifies the linkages between monetary and fiscal policies and key macroeconomic variables such as income, unemployment, inflation and interest rates. Specially written "newspaper" articles simulate current macroeconomic news on asset-price bubbles, exchange rates, hyperinflation and more. Exercises and diagrams, and a global perspective – incorporating both developed and emerging economies - make this a broadly useful, real-world oriented text on a complex and shifting subject.

Fiscal policy is an important factor influencing the growth performance of countries. However, compared to the large empirical literature on the effects of monetary policy on economic activity, fiscal policy has received less attention. In this book, the authors present current research in the study of fiscal policy and the macroeconomy as well as the challenges of fiscal policy in the current global environment. The book brings a global perspective to the practice of fiscal policy by presenting case studies from the United States, the European Union, and the Caribbean. Topics discussed in the book include international dimensions of fiscal policy, public debt and the economy, austerity versus stimulus and economic growth, the correction of economic imbalances in Europe, the long term impact of fiscal devaluation, the cyclicality of fiscal policy, the appropriate debt ceilings for small states, lessons from the banking union framework in the Euro Area, fiscal policy and competitiveness, policy lessons from debt restructuring in Jamaica, estimating the structural fiscal balance in small islands and fiscal policy rules and fiscal performance.

This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical literature on the effectiveness of fiscal policy. The focus is on the size of fiscal multipliers, and on the possibility that multipliers can turn negative (i.e., that fiscal contractions can be expansionary). The paper concludes that fiscal multipliers are overwhelmingly positive but small. However, there is some evidence of negative fiscal multipliers.

Fiscal policy is an important instrument for maintaining and improving living standards. Such living standards can be viewed as an outcome of the interaction between the opportunities offered by society and the readiness and ability of each person to exploit them. Under certain circumstances, public finance can make an important contribution to the creation of opportunities within a given society by raising resources from the private sector through taxation or borrowing (domestic and external) and allocating those resources effectively and equitably in the form of public spending, including through public goods and transfers. The first chapters in this volume sketch out a framework that policy makers can use in adopting a more cohesive or integrated approach to the short- and long-term dimensions of fiscal policy. Here the traditional threefold rationale for fiscal policy proposed by Musgrave-stabilization, resource allocation, and distribution-continues to be useful. Other chapters in this volume take up some of the critical institutional challenges in implementing fiscal policy for longer-term growth and development. These chapters also look at the tools and approaches being developed to address these challenges. Improving the quality of public investment management is a particular priority in view of the recent evidence that as little as half of all public investment expenditure translates into productive capital stock. The last chapter in this volume is a case study of fiscal responses to the great recession in low-income Sub-Saharan Africa, looking at stabilization and the longer-run growth, as well as distributional aspects of such responses. The growing depth of domestic financial markets in many African countries rather unexpectedly is turning out to be a critical source of financing for fiscal policy responses.