The Role Of Fiscal Policy In Sustainable Stabilization

This paper reviews the role of fiscal policy in a number of stabilization programs in Latin America since the early 1980s. The paper highlights the importance of sustainable fiscal adjustment in stabilization efforts, and discusses the main issues that arise in this context. By reviewing the Latin American experience, it is argued that responsibility for failed stabilization attempts can be traced to four main factors: inconsistent policy mixes; excessive reliance on temporary factors of improvement in the fiscal accounts; failure to implement fundamental fiscal reforms; and lack of complementary structural reforms.

This paper reviews the role of fiscal policy in a number of stabilization programs in Latin America since the early 1980s. The paper highlights the importance of sustainable fiscal adjustment in stabilization efforts, and discusses the main issues that arise in this context. By reviewing the Latin American experience, it is argued that responsibility for failed stabilization attempts can be traced to four main factors: inconsistent policy mixes; excessive reliance on temporary factors of improvement in the fiscal accounts; failure to implement fundamental fiscal reforms; and lack of complementary structural reforms.

The public debt/GDP ratio in several countries showed the largest ever peacetime increase during the last 20 years of the 20th century, thereby causing widespread fiscal unsustainability. Towards the latter half of the 1990s, several governments initiated steps to reverse this trend, however, they frequently found that their policies were not always successful. This book examines why. that merely running a primary surplus to restore fiscal sustainability will not always work. In effect, governments may simply shift the problem to other sectors of the economy, therby creating economic instability. By linking the budget constraints of govenment and non-governmental agents at a macroeconomic level, the author's framework allows him to measure how changes to the budget of one economic sector are transferred to the budgetary position of another sector. By taking account of thes sectoral balance effects, as well as the role of uncertainty and expectations, the book develops a set of rules for the maintnance of fiscal sustainability and economic stability. position of fiscal sustainability, this book should be useful for economists and academic working on fiscal and macroeconomic policy, especially from a Post-Keynesian perspective, and policymakers interested in ensuring economic and fiscal stability.

For some time, the use of monetary and fiscal policies to smooth business cycle fluctuations has taken a back seat to longer-term objectives of restoring price stability and fiscal balance. Many policymakers and academic economists have held the view that fiscal policy had little or no short-run stabilization role and that monetary policy should give priority to maintaining price stability. More recently, however, weaker economic performance in some of the world's economies, most notably in Japan and the United States, has led to renewed interest in the use of short-run stabilization policy. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City sponsored a symposium, "Rethinking Stabilization Policy," at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, on August 29-31, 2002. The symposium brought together a distinguished group of central bank officials, academic economists, and business economists to discuss the potential scope for stabilization policy in today's new environment. Our goal for this symposium was straight-forward, although hardly simple. It was to provide a forum to discuss the roles of monetary and fiscal stabilization policies, their effectiveness, and their limitations. And finally, so as not to lose sight of a consensus from earlier meetings, we analyzed these stabilization policies' compatibility with long-run price stability and fiscal sustainability, which are critical to the success of any economy - industrial or emerging. Thomas M. Hoenig President Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City

Topics discussed in this publication include: an introduction to theoretical and practical aspects of fiscal sustainability; theoretical prerequisites for fiscal sustainability analysis; debt indicators in the measurement of vulnerability; cyclical adjustment of budget surplus; pro-cyclical fiscal policy using Mexico's fiscal accounts as a case study; fiscal rules and the experience of Chile; currency crises and models for deal with financing costs.

This paper critically reviews recent work regarding the sustainability of public debt. It argues that Debt Sustainability Analyses (DSAs) should be more than mere mechanical simulation exercises. Instead, a DSA should be linked to some objective regarding the distribution of fiscal burdens and distortions over time (in the tradition of Barro’s 1979 tax smoothing objective). The paper discusses objective functions that yield simple and transparent fiscal policy rules.

This paper assesses the cyclicality and sustainability of fiscal policy in Belize and applies a stochastic simulation model to determine the optimal set of fiscal rules. The empirical analysis shows that fiscal policy in Belize has been significantly procyclical and unsustainable much of the period since 1976. While the government’s recent commitment to maintain a primary surplus of at least 2 percent of GDP until 2021 is supporting debt reduction, stochastic simulations indicate that further improvement in the primary balance is necessary to reliably bring the debt-to-GDP ratio to a sustainable path. Given Belize’s history of large economic shocks, this paper proposes explicit fiscal rules designed for countercyclical policy and debt sustainability. It recommends integrating such rules into a well-designed fiscal responsibility law and establishing an independent fiscal council to improve accountability and transparency.

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.