IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/aee/wpaper/1307.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

May austerity be counterproductive?

Author

Listed:
  • Pablo García Sánchez
  • Miguel Sebastián

    (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact that fiscal policy has on economic activity and sovereign debt during economic downturns in the euro area, mainly Germany and Spain. Our theoretical and empirical framework shows that the macroeconomic returns of austerity crucially depend on the values of fiscal multipliers. We find that, for the Spanish economy, even if policy makers just focus on the public debt ratio, ignoring output and unemployment, policies of deficit reduction may be self-defeating, especially if carried on via tax increases. In fact, counter cyclical policies beat deficit consolidation policies in stabilizing the sovereign debt ratio, no matter if shocks are on aggregate supply or aggregate demand. By contrast, in the German case, we cannot reject the hypothesis that austerity works, even under a sluggish economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Pablo García Sánchez & Miguel Sebastián, 2013. "May austerity be counterproductive?," Working Papers 13-07, Asociación Española de Economía y Finanzas Internacionales.
    • Handle: RePEc:aee:wpaper:1307
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeefi.com/RePEc/pdf/defi13-07.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pablo Burriel & Francisco de Castro & Daniel Garrote & Esther Gordo & Joan Paredes & Javier J. Pérez, 2010. "Fiscal Policy Shocks in the Euro Area and the US: An Empirical Assessment," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 31(2), pages 251-285, June.
    2. Ansgar Belke & Jens Klose, 2009. "Does the ECB Rely on a Taylor Rule?: Comparing Ex-post with Real Time Data," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 917, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Jean Imbs & Isabelle Mejean, 2010. "Trade Elasticities: A Final Report for the European Commission," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 432, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    4. Ansgar Belke & Jens Klose, 2011. "Does the ECB Rely on a Taylor Rule During the Financial Crisis? Comparing Ex-post and Real Time Data with Real Time Forecasts," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 147-171, September.
    5. Jocelyn Boussard & Francisco de Castro & Matteo Salto, 2012. "Fiscal Multipliers and Public Debt Dynamics in Consolidations," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 460, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Carmen Díaz-Roldán, 2017. "Fiscal Performance in Monetary Unions: How Much Austerity Should Be Allowed?," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 64(1), pages 61-76, December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cleomar Gomes da silva & Flavio V. Vieira, 2016. "Monetary policy decision making: the role of ideology, institutions and central bank independence," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 36(4), pages 2051-2062.
    2. Monika Pécsyová, 2014. "Odhad vplyvu fiškálnej konsolidácie na rast HDP v SR [Estimated Impact of Fiscal Consolidation on GDP Growth in the Slovak Republic]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2014(2), pages 174-193.
    3. Christophe Blot & Marion Cochard & Jérôme Creel & Bruno Ducoudré & Danielle Schweisguth & Xavier Timbeau, 2014. "Fiscal consolidation in times of crisis: is the sooner really the better?," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 159-192.
    4. Gregory de Walque & Juha Kilponen & Massimiliano Pisani & Sebastian Schmidt & Vesna Corbo & Tibor Hledik & Josef Hollmayr & Samuel Hurtado & Paulo Júlio & Dmitry Kulikov & Matthieu Lemoine & Matija Lo, 2015. "Comparing fiscal multipliers across models and countries in Europe," Working Paper Research 278, National Bank of Belgium.
    5. Attinasi, Maria Grazia & Metelli, Luca, 2017. "Is fiscal consolidation self-defeating? A panel-VAR analysis for the Euro area countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 147-164.
    6. Florian Wöhlbier & Caterina Astarita & Gilles Mourre, 2014. "Consolidation on the revenue side and growth-friendly tax structures: an indicator based approach," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 513, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2g7mhju69b94obeaqlen09s1au is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Eduardo Garzón Espinosa & Bibiana Medialdea García & Esteban Cruz Hidalgo, 2021. "Fiscal Policy Approaches: An Inquiring Look From The Modern Monetary Theory," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 55(4), pages 999-1022, October.
    9. Javier J. Perez & Ana Lamo & Enrique Moral-Benito, 2015. "Does Slack Influence Public and Private Labor Market," EcoMod2015 8792, EcoMod.
    10. Alejandro López-Vera & Andrés D. Pinchao-Rosero & Norberto Rodríguez-Niño, 2018. "Non-Linear Fiscal Multipliers for Public Expenditure and Tax Revenue in Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, vol. 36(85), pages 48-64, April.
    11. Belke, Ansgar & Klose, Jens, 2010. "(How) Do the ECB and the Fed React to Financial Market Uncertainty? – The Taylor Rule in Times of Crisis," Ruhr Economic Papers 166, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    12. Thanagopal, Dr. Thannaletchimy & Housset, Félix, 2017. "A quality-adjusted AIDS model in the study of French imports," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C), pages 85-99.
    13. Manuel Díaz & Carmen Marín & Diego Martínez, 2023. "Determining factors and future scenarios for the Spanish public debt," Studies on the Spanish Economy eee2023-17, FEDEA.
    14. Hernán Rincón & Diego Rodríguez & Jorge Toro & Santiago Téllez, 2017. "FISCO: modelo fiscal para Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, vol. 35(83), pages 161-187, June.
    15. Cassette, Aurélie & Creel, Jérôme & Farvaque, Etienne & Paty, Sonia, 2013. "Governments under influence: Country interactions in discretionary fiscal policy," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 79-89.
    16. Roel Beetsma & Massimo Giuliodori, 2011. "The Effects of Government Purchases Shocks: Review and Estimates for the EU," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(550), pages 4-32, February.
    17. Jérôme Creel & Eric Heyer & Mathieu Plane, 2011. "Petit précis de politique budgétaire par tous les temps," Post-Print hal-03460510, HAL.
    18. Sebastian Gechert, 2015. "What fiscal policy is most effective? A meta-regression analysis," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 67(3), pages 553-580.
    19. António Afonso & Ricardo Sousa, 2011. "The macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy in Portugal: a Bayesian SVAR analysis," Portuguese Economic Journal, Springer;Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestao, vol. 10(1), pages 61-82, April.
    20. A team of the Working Group on Econometric Modelling of the European System of Central Banks, 2012. "Competitiveness and external imbalances within the euro area," Occasional Paper Series 139, European Central Bank.
    21. Iván Kataryniuk & Javier Vallés, 2018. "Fiscal consolidation after the Great Recession: the role of composition," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(2), pages 563-585.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sovereign Debt; Fiscal Policy; Fiscal Multipliers;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:aee:wpaper:1307. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Luis Miguel del Corral Cuervo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeefiea.html .

    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.