Fiscal austerity during debt crises

Fiscal Austerity during Debt Crises∗

This paper constructs a dynamic model of government borrowing and default. The government faces a fiscal constraint in that it cannot raise tax rates. By defaulting on the debt, the government can increase domestic consumption. Two types of default arise in this environment: fiscal defaults and aggregate defaults. Fiscal defaults occur because the government cannot service the debt due to its i...

Trade-offs of Fiscal Austerity in the European Debt Crisis: The Case of Slovenia

In this paper, we investigate the trade-off between the needs for budget consolidation and the desirability of expansionary fiscal policies as a means of demand management by simulating alternative scenarios with a macroeconometric model of the Slovenian economy. The simulations show that for the Slovenian economy an expansionary fiscal policy is neither feasible nor desirable: it leads to unsu...

Endogenous debt crises ¬リニ

We distinguish two types of debt crises: those that are the outcome of exogenous shocks (to productivity growth for instance) and those that are endogenously created, either by self-fulfilling panic in financial markets or by the reckless behavior of “Panglossian” borrowers. After Krugman, we characterize as “Panglossian” those borrowers who only focus on their best growth prospects, anticipati...

Liquidity traps and expectation dynamics: Fiscal stimulus or fiscal austerity?

We examine global dynamics under infinite-horizon learning in New Keynesian models where the interest-rate rule is subject to the zero lower bound. The intended steady state is locally but not globally stable. Unstable deflationary paths emerge after large pessimistic shocks to expectations. For large expectation shocks that push interest rates to the zero bound, a temporary fiscal stimulus, or...

Unpleasant Supply - Side Arithmetics of Fiscal Austerity