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Why Do Countries Adopt Fiscal Rules?

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  • Yener Altunbaş
  • John Thornton

Abstract

This paper examines which economic, institutional and political characteristics of countries affect the likelihood that a numeral rule will be adopted as part of a fiscal strategy to limit the level of public debt. We estimate a panel binary response model over the period 1970-2012 for 110 countries, of which 58 opted to adopt such a rule. Our results suggest that the probability such a rule will be adopted is greater if a country has a high level of public debt, a relatively inflexible exchange rate regime, has already adopted inflation targeting, has deep credit markets, and if other countries already have adopted a debt rule. There are some differences in decision factors between high-income and lower-income countries, with the level of economic development and the openness of the economy playing opposite roles in each country group, and the impact of monetary unions on debt rule adoption being much stronger in the former group. The results are robust to testing for reverse causality, including by using different econometric techniques
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  • Yener Altunbaş & John Thornton, 2017. "Why Do Countries Adopt Fiscal Rules?," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 85(1), pages 65-87, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:manchs:v:85:y:2017:i:1:p:65-87
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/manc.12136
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    3. Mahambare, Vidya & Dhanaraj, Sowmya & Mittal, Pragati, 2022. "The political budget cycles in the presence of a fiscal rule: The case of farm debt waivers in India," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 44(3), pages 701-721.
    4. John Thornton & Chrysovalantis Vasilakis, 2020. "Do fiscal rules reduce government borrowing costs in developing countries?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 499-510, October.
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    6. Caselli, Francesca & Reynaud, Julien, 2020. "Do fiscal rules cause better fiscal balances? A new instrumental variable strategy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    7. Ablam Estel Apeti & Bao-We-Wal Bambe & Jean-Louis Combes & Eyah Denise Edoh, 2023. "Original Sin: Fiscal Rules and Government Debt in Foreign Currency in Developing Countries," Working Papers hal-04130477, HAL.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government

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