IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v109y2001i3-4p243-68.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Politico-Economic Determinants of Public Debt Growth: A Case Study for Austria

Author

Listed:
  • Neck, Reinhard
  • Getzner, Michael

Abstract

Based on a number of economic and particularly politico-economic arguments, we examine the reasons for the growth of the central government's debt in Austria using time series data for the period 1960 to 1999. Starting with an empirical test of Bohn's theory of sustainability of fiscal policy, which is based on Barro's tax-smoothing model, we extend the model to account for several politico-economic variables suggested by public choice theories. Keynesian stabilization policy objectives, influences of ideology and political parties, the form of government and the political business cycle are tested regarding their ability to explain the growth of public debt in Austria. There is some empirical evidence for systematic influence of government behavior in accordance with recent public choice theories. However, it seems that the most important influence on Austrian fiscal policy is the unemployment rate, which has a significant influence on the decisions made by policy-makers. Concluding, we briefly discuss the implications of these results for the prospects of reducing public debt in Austria in the near future. Copyright 2001 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Suggested Citation

  • Neck, Reinhard & Getzner, Michael, 2001. "Politico-Economic Determinants of Public Debt Growth: A Case Study for Austria," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 109(3-4), pages 243-268, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:109:y:2001:i:3-4:p:243-68
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://journals.kluweronline.com/issn/0048-5829/contents
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Moessinger, Marc-Daniel, 2012. "Do personal characteristics of finance ministers affect the development of public debt?," ZEW Discussion Papers 12-068, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    2. Sadik-Zada, Elkhan Richard & Gatto, Andrea, 2019. "Determinants of the Public Debt and the Role of the Natural Resources: a Cross-Country Analysis," ETA: Economic Theory and Applications 285026, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM).
    3. Michał Mackiewicz & Piotr Krajewski, 2009. "On the mechanisms of achieving fiscal (un)sustainability: the case of Poland," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 36(4), pages 445-460, November.
    4. Gottfried Haber & Reinhard Neck, 2006. "Sustainability of Austrian public debt: a political economy perspective," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 141-154, June.
    5. Sanghee Park, 2018. "Understanding Public Sector Debt: Financial Vicious Circle under the Soft Budget Constraint," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 71-92, March.
    6. Johann Bröthaler & Michael Getzner, 2011. "Fiscal Autonomy and Total Government Expenditure: An Austrian Case-study," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 17(2), pages 134-156, May.
    7. Hlongwane, Nyiko Worship & Daw, Olebogeng David, 2022. "Determinants of public debt in South Africa: A Regime-Switching Approach," MPRA Paper 113203, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Marc-Daniel Moessinger, 2014. "Do the personal characteristics of finance ministers affect changes in public debt?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 161(1), pages 183-207, October.
    9. Carrera, Jorge & de la Vega, Pablo, 2021. "The impact of income inequality on public debt," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 24(C).
    10. Srđan Redžepagić & Matthieu Llorca, 2007. "Does Politics Matter in the Conduct of Fiscal Policy? Political Determinants of the Fiscal Sustainability: Evidence from Seven Individual Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC)," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 54(4), pages 489-500, December.
    11. Bougharriou, Nouha & Benayed, Walid & Gabsi, Foued Badr, 2022. "Democratic transition and fiscal policy in the Arab world," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 46(2).
    12. Johann Bröthaler & Michael Getzner & Gottfried Haber, 2015. "Sustainability of local government debt: a case study of Austrian municipalities," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 521-546, August.
    13. Reinhard Neck & Gottfried Haber, 2012. "Is the Austrian public debt sustainable?," International Journal of Sustainable Economy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 4(1), pages 1-16.
    14. Reinhard Neck & Gottfried Haber & Andrea Klinglmair, 2015. "Austrian Public Debt Growth: A Public Choice Perspective," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 21(3), pages 249-260, August.
    15. repec:kap:iaecre:v:17:y:2011:i:2:p:134-156 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Giovanni Di Bartolomeo & Marco Di Pietro & Enrico Saltari & Willi Semmler, 2018. "Public debt stabilization: the relevance of policymakers’ time horizons," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 177(3), pages 287-299, December.
    17. Thushyanthan Baskaran, 2010. "On the link between fiscal decentralization and public debt in OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 145(3), pages 351-378, December.
    18. J. Stephen Ferris, 2010. "Fiscal Policy from a Public Choice Perspective," Carleton Economic Papers 10-10, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    19. Johann Bröthaler & Michael Getzner, 2015. "The Tax-Spend Debate and Budgetary Policy in Austria," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 21(3), pages 299-315, August.
    20. Saeid Mahdavi, 2014. "Bohn's Test of Fiscal Sustainability of the American State Governments," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(4), pages 1028-1054, April.
    21. Maximilian Goedl & Christoph Zwick, 2015. "Stochastic Stability of Public Debt: The Case of Austria," Graz Economics Papers 2015-02, University of Graz, Department of Economics.
    22. Maximilian Goedl & Christoph Zwick, 2018. "Assessing the stochastic stability of public debt: the case of Austria," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 45(3), pages 559-585, August.
    23. Bougharriou, Nouha & Benayed, Walid & Gabsi, Foued Badr, 2018. "How does democracy affect public debt? Evidence from the Arab world," Economics Discussion Papers 2018-54, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:109:y:2001:i:3-4:p:243-68. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.