Fiscal rules, fiscal outcomes and financial market behaviour

Fiscal Rules and Fiscal Performance in the EU and Japan

Fiscal rules specify quantitative targets for key budgetary aggregates. In this paper, we review the experience with such rules in Japan and in the EU. Comparing the performance of fiscal policy in the 1980s and 1990s until 2003, we find that the fiscal rule of the 1980s exerted some but not much disciplinary influence on Japanese fiscal policy. The fiscal rule of the Maastricht Treaty had a si...

Fiscal Policy and Financial Markets*

We examine the effect of fiscal policy on sovereign risk spreads and investigate whether the interaction of fiscal variables with political institutions affect financial markets. Using panel data from emerging market countries, we find that revenue-based adjustment lowers spreads more than spending-based adjustment. Financial markets also react to the composition of spending. Cuts in current sp...

Fiscal Transparency and Fiscal Policy Outcomes in Oecd Countries

It is widely believed and often argued that budget process transparency has large, positive effects on fiscal performance. However, the evidence linking transparency and fiscal policy outcomes is far from compelling. We modify the "debt as precommitment" model of Alesina and Tabellini (1990) by allowing for budget inertia and reputational costs. These modest changes produce an equilibrium level...

Implementation Rules for Fiscal Decentralization

Simple, Implementable Fiscal Policy Rules

This paper analyzes the scope for systematic rules-based fiscal activism in open economies. Relative to a balanced budget rule, automatic stabilizers significantly improve welfare. But they minimize fiscal instrument volatility rather than business cycle volatility. A more aggressively countercyclical tax revenue gap rule increases welfare gains by around 50 percent, with only modest increases ...