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Sustainability of Public Debt and Budget Deficit: Panel cointegration analysis for the European Union Member countries

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Abstract

In this study, we analyse the sustainability of fiscal policy of EU member countries within the panel cointegration and error-correction frameworks. Unlike the previous empirical papers in this area, we apply the test for panel cointegration between the primary budget deficit and the public debt defined in GDP ratios. Based on the cointegration test results, we conclude that the fiscal policy is consistent with the intertemporal budget constraint, i.e., it is sustainable in the panel of fifteen EU member countries over the period from 1970 to 2004. Hence, we show that the fiscal balance exhibits a significant structural change in the year 1992, when we apply the Banerjee and Carrion-i-Silvestre (2006) test for a structural break in the panel cointegration relationship. In a next step, we search for the politico-economic factors which explain the variation in the sustainable fiscal balance among the European countries. We evidence that the European fiscal rules have a significant positive effect on the improvement of the fiscal position of the governments of the EU member countries.

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Paper provided by Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria in its series Economics working papers with number 2006-10.

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Date of creation: Jul 2006
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Handle: RePEc:jku:econwp:2006_10

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Keywords: Sustainability; Budget Deficit; Panel Cointegration; Structural Breaks; Panel error-correction method;

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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Juan Carlos Cuestas & Karsten Staehr, 2011. "Fiscal shocks and budget balance persistence in the EU countries from Central and Eastern Europe," Bank of Estonia Working Papers wp2011-08, Bank of Estonia, revised 13 Jul 2011.
  2. António Afonso & Christophe Rault, 2008. "What do we really Know about Fiscal Sustainability in the EU? A Panel Data Diagnostic," CESifo Working Paper Series 2226, CESifo Group Munich.
  3. Byrne, Joseph P. & Fiess, Norbert & MacDonald, Ronald, 2011. "The global dimension to fiscal sustainability," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 137-150, June.
  4. António Afonso & Christophe Rault, 2007. "What We Really Know about Fiscal Sustainability in the EU? A Panel Data Diagnostic," Working Papers 2007/20, Department of Economics at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon..
  5. António Afonso & Christophe Rault, 2008. "Should we Care for Structural Breaks When Assessing Fiscal Sustainability?," Working Papers 2008/01, Department of Economics at the School of Economics and Management (ISEG), Technical University of Lisbon..
  6. António Afonso & Christophe Rault, 2008. "3-Step Analysis of Public Finances Sustainability: the Case of the European Union," Working Papers hal-00322086, HAL.
  7. Mark J. Holmes & Theodore Panagiotidis & Jesus Otero, 2008. "Are EU budgets stationary?," Discussion Paper Series 2008_07, Department of Economics, University of Macedonia, revised Sep 2008.
  8. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:3:y:2007:i:63:p:1-9 is not listed on IDEAS
  9. Baumöhl, Eduard & Výrost, Tomáš & Lyócsa, Štefan, 2011. "Are we able to capture the EU debt crisis? Evidence from PIIGGS countries in panel unit root framework," MPRA Paper 30334, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  10. Talpos, Ioan & Dima, Bogdan & Mutascu, Mihai & Enache, Cosmin, 2009. "Empirical Evidencies for the Budget Deficits Co-Integration in the Old European Union Members: Are there any Interlinkages in Fiscal Policies?," MPRA Paper 12647, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  11. Mark J. Holmes & Jesús Otero & Theodore Panagiotidis, 2009. "Are Eu Budget Deficits Stationary?," Working Paper Series 17_09, The Rimini Centre for Economic Analysis, revised Jan 2009.

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