IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fgv/epgewp/334.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Public debt sustainability and endogenous seigniorage in Brazil: time-series evidence from 1947-92: revised version

Author

Listed:
  • Issler, João Victor
  • Lima, Luiz Renato Regis de Oliveira

Abstract

Using national accounts data for the revenue-GDP and expenditureGDP ratios from 1947 to 1992, we examine three central issues in public finance. First, was the path of public debt sustainable during this period? Second, if debt is sustainable, how has the government historically balanced the budget after shocks to either revenues or expenditures? Third, are expenditures exogenous? The results show that (i) public deficit is stationary (bounded asymptotic variance), with the budget in Brazil being balanced almost entirely through changes in taxes, regardless of the cause of the initial imbalance. Expenditures are weakly exogenous, but tax revenues are not; (ii) the behavior of a rational Brazilian consumer may be consistent with Ricardian Equivalence; (iii) seigniorage revenues are critical to restore intertemporal budget equilibrium, since, when we exclude them from total revenues, debt is not sustainable in econometric tests.

Suggested Citation

  • Issler, João Victor & Lima, Luiz Renato Regis de Oliveira, 1998. "Public debt sustainability and endogenous seigniorage in Brazil: time-series evidence from 1947-92: revised version," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 334, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    • Handle: RePEc:fgv:epgewp:334
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repositorio.fgv.br/bitstreams/f929ffbc-68da-4b65-be0d-a63dc004d65a/download
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Trehan, Bharat & Walsh, Carl E., 1988. "Common trends, the government's budget constraint, and revenue smoothing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 425-444.
    2. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    3. Hamilton, James D & Flavin, Marjorie A, 1986. "On the Limitations of Government Borrowing: A Framework for EmpiricalTesting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 808-819, September.
    4. Ahmed, Shaghil & Rogers, John H., 1995. "Government budget deficits and trade deficits Are present value constraints satisfied in long-term data?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 351-374, November.
    5. Cysne, Rubens Penha, 1995. "O sistema financeiro oficial e a queda das transferências inflacionárias," FGV EPGE Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 254, EPGE Brazilian School of Economics and Finance - FGV EPGE (Brazil).
    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. António Afonso, 2000. "Fiscal policy sustainability: some unpleasant European evidence," Working Papers Department of Economics 2000/12, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    2. Arghyrou, Michael G. & Luintel, Kul B., 2007. "Government solvency: Revisiting some EMU countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 387-410, June.
    3. Issler, Joao Victor & Lima, Luiz Renato, 2000. "Public debt sustainability and endogenous seigniorage in Brazil: time-series evidence from 1947-1992," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 131-147, June.
    4. Juan Carlos Cuestas & Luis A. Gil-Alana & Laura Sauci, 2020. "Public finances in the EU-27: Are they sustainable?," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 181-204, February.
    5. Munawar-Shah, Syed & Abdul-Majid, Mariani & Hussain-Shah, Syed, 2014. "Assessing Fiscal Sustainability for SAARC and IMT-GT Countries," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 5(2), pages 26-40.
    6. Kyung-woo Lee & Jong-Hee Kim & Taeyoon Sung, 2018. "A test of fiscal sustainability in the EU countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(5), pages 1170-1196, October.
    7. Wu, Jyh-lin, 1998. "Are budget deficits "too large"?: The evidence from Taiwan," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 519-528.
    8. Georgios Chortareas & George Kapetanios & Merih Uctum, 2008. "Nonlinear Alternatives to Unit Root Tests and Public Finances Sustainability: Some Evidence from Latin American and Caribbean Countries," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(5), pages 645-663, October.
    9. Merih Uctum & Thom Thurston & Remzi Uctum, 2006. "Public Debt, the Unit Root Hypothesis and Structural Breaks: A Multi‐Country Analysis," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 73(289), pages 129-156, February.
    10. Tilak Abeysinghe & Ananda Jayawickrama, 2013. "A segmented trend model to assess fiscal sustainability: The US experience 1929–2009," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 1129-1141, June.
    11. Markus Reischmann, 2016. "Empirical Studies on Public Debt and Fiscal Transfers," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 63.
    12. Frederick van der Ploeg, 2007. "Prudent Budgetary Policy: Political Economy of Precautionary Taxation," Economics Working Papers ECO2007/39, European University Institute.
    13. Cunado, J. & Gil-Alana, L. A. & Perez de Gracia, F., 2004. "Is the US fiscal deficit sustainable?: A fractionally integrated approach," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 501-526.
    14. Hatemi-J, Abdulnasser, 2002. "Fiscal policy in Sweden: effects of EMU criteria convergence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 121-136, January.
    15. Motonori Yoshida, 2020. "Fiscal Sustainability of Local Governments in Japan," Asian Economic Journal, East Asian Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 127-162, June.
    16. Samuel S Jibao & Niek Schoeman & Ruthira Naraidoo, 2010. "Fiscal Regime Changes and the Sustainability of Fiscal Imbalance in South Africa: A Smooth Transition Error-Correction Approach," Working Papers 201023, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    17. Roberto Ricciuti, 2003. "Assessing Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 55-78, February.
    18. Akram, Vaseem & Rath, Badri Narayan, 2020. "What do we know about fiscal sustainability across Indian states?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 307-321.
    19. TINA M. Saeid Mahdavi, 2012. "Bohn’s Test of Fiscal Sustainability of the American State Governments The dramatic fall in state government revenues during the “Great Recession” and the resultant large budget deficits accentuated c," Working Papers 0030, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    20. Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2015. "Fiscal Transfers and Fiscal Sustainability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(5), pages 975-1005, August.

    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:fgv:epgewp:334. 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: Núcleo de Computação da FGV EPGE (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/epgvfbr.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.