IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bol/bodewp/625.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A (Un)Pleasant Arithmetic of Fiscal Policy: the Case of Italian Public Debt

Author

Listed:
  • L. Marattin
  • M. Marzo

Abstract

Using the simple arithmetic of government budget constraint, we perform an analysis on the Italian case, investigating the consequences on the main public finance aggregates of the adoption of a fiscal policy rule responding to past real debt/GDP ratio. Such a rule, firmly grounded in the economic analysis, would allow the reduction of Italy's outstanding stock of debt without requiring the strict adherence to the 3% criterion for deficit/GDP ratio, as prescribed by SGP. We perform a forecasting exercise under five alternative scenarios, analyze the details of a structural debt reduction strategy with alternative yearly step, and finally carry out a counterfactual exercise by applying our proposed rule to the period 1994-2006.

Suggested Citation

  • L. Marattin & M. Marzo, 2008. "A (Un)Pleasant Arithmetic of Fiscal Policy: the Case of Italian Public Debt," Working Papers 625, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    • Handle: RePEc:bol:bodewp:625
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://amsacta.unibo.it/4625/1/625.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leeper, Eric M., 1991. "Equilibria under 'active' and 'passive' monetary and fiscal policies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 129-147, February.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 1997. "Fiscal Adjustments in OECD Countries: Composition and Macroeconomic Effects," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 44(2), pages 210-248, June.
    3. Cochrane, John H, 2001. "Long-Term Debt and Optimal Policy in the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 69-116, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Andres, Javier & Domenech, Rafael & Fatas, Antonio, 2008. "The stabilizing role of government size," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 571-593, February.
    2. Bajo-Rubio, Oscar & Díaz-Roldán, Carmen & Esteve, Vicente, 2014. "Deficit sustainability, and monetary versus fiscal dominance: The case of Spain, 1850–2000," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 924-937.
    3. Creel, Jerome & Bihan, Herve Le, 2006. "Using structural balance data to test the fiscal theory of the price level: Some international evidence," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 338-360, June.
    4. Marco Bassetto, 2002. "A Game-Theoretic View of the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(6), pages 2167-2195, November.
    5. Jérôme Creel & Günes Kamber, 2004. "Debt, deficits and inflation on the road to the EU: the case of Turkey," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 91(5), pages 157-174.
    6. Lin, Hsin-Yi & Chu, Hao-Pang, 2013. "Are fiscal deficits inflationary?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 214-233.
    7. Howard Kung & Gonzalo Morales & Alexandre Corhay, 2017. "Fiscal Discount Rates and Debt Maturity," 2017 Meeting Papers 840, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    8. Jarociński, Marek & Maćkowiak, Bartosz, 2018. "Monetary-fiscal interactions and the euro area's malaise," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 251-266.
    9. Hommes, Cars & Lustenhouwer, Joep & Mavromatis, Kostas, 2018. "Fiscal consolidations and heterogeneous expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 173-205.
    10. Daniel, Betty C. & Shiamptanis, Christos, 2012. "Fiscal risk in a monetary union," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 1289-1309.
    11. José Isidro García de Paso, 2002. "The 1628 Castilian crydown: A test of competing theories of the price level," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 163(4), pages 71-92, December.
    12. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio E. Primiceri & Andrea Tambalotti, 2013. "The Effects of the Saving and Banking Glut on the U.S. Economy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER International Seminar on Macroeconomics 2013, pages 52-67, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Fan, Jingwen & Minford, Patrick & Ou, Zhirong, 2013. "The Fiscal Theory of the Price Level - identification and testing for the UK in the 1970s," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2013/12, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    14. Mackowiak, Bartosz & Corsetti, Giancarlo, 2022. "Gambling to Preserve Price (and Fiscal) Stability," CEPR Discussion Papers 17588, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    15. Cavalcanti, Marco A.F.H. & Vereda, Luciano & Doctors, Rebeca de B. & Lima, Felipe C. & Maynard, Lucas, 2018. "The macroeconomic effects of monetary policy shocks under fiscal rules constrained by public debt sustainability," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 184-201.
    16. Mengus, Eric & Barthélemy, Jean & Plantin, Guillaume, 2021. "The Central Bank, the Treasury, or the Market: Which One Determines the Price Level?," CEPR Discussion Papers 16679, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Saroj Bhattarai & Jae Won Lee & Woong Yong Park, 2016. "Policy Regimes, Policy Shifts, and U.S. Business Cycles," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(5), pages 968-983, December.
    18. Harashima, Taiji, 2007. "Hyperinflation, disinflation, deflation, etc.: A unified and micro-founded explanation for inflation," MPRA Paper 3836, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2017. "Escaping the Great Recession," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(4), pages 1030-1058, April.
    20. Gliksberg, Baruch, 2013. "Monetary policy and fiscal limits with no-default," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 285-304.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination

    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:bol:bodewp:625. 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: Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/sebolit.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.