IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cuf/journl/y2008v9i2p239-251.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fiscal Sustainability and Fiscal Soundness

Author

Listed:
  • Haizhou Huang
  • Danyang Xie

Abstract

This paper tackles fiscal sustainability and fiscal soundness. In contrast to the existing literature, our analysis is in a general equilibrium framework. We obtain three results. First, we endogenize growth rate and interest rate, the two key rates for any study of fiscal sustainability; second, we illustrate that fiscal sustainability in general equilibrium should not be measured by a one-dimension indicator, e.g., debt-to-GDP ratio as in conventional studies, rather it is a line¡ªa fiscal sustainability frontier¡ªin two dimensions, namely, debt-to-GDP ratio and expenditure-to-GDP ratio; third, we obtain a novel and useful index of aggregate fiscal soundness.

Suggested Citation

  • Haizhou Huang & Danyang Xie, 2008. "Fiscal Sustainability and Fiscal Soundness," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 9(2), pages 239-251, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:cuf:journl:y:2008:v:9:i:2:p:239-251
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeconf.net/Articles/Nov2008/aef090203.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://down.aefweb.net/AefArticles/aef090203.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Romer, Paul M, 1986. "Increasing Returns and Long-run Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(5), pages 1002-1037, October.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Roberto Perotti & José Tavares, 1998. "The Political Economy of Fiscal Adjustments," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(1), pages 197-266.
    3. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff & Miguel A. Savastano, 2003. "Debt Intolerance," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(1), pages 1-74.
    4. Mr. George Kopits, 2001. "Fiscal Rules: Useful Policy Framework or Unnecessary Ornament?," IMF Working Papers 2001/145, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Craig Burnside & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 2001. "Prospective Deficits and the Asian Currency Crisis," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(6), pages 1155-1197, December.
    6. Gilles Saint-Paul, 1992. "Fiscal Policy in an Endogenous Growth Model," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 107(4), pages 1243-1259.
    7. Aiyagari, S. Rao & McGrattan, Ellen R., 1998. "The optimum quantity of debt," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 447-469, October.
    8. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Razin, Assaf & Tesar, Linda L., 1994. "Effective tax rates in macroeconomics: Cross-country estimates of tax rates on factor incomes and consumption," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 297-323, December.
    9. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    10. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1985. "Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 223-247, April.
    11. Mr. Richard Hemming & Mr. Axel Schimmelpfennig & Mr. Michael Kell, 2003. "Fiscal Vulnerability and Financial Crises in Emerging Market Economies," IMF Occasional Papers 2003/002, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Devarajan, Shantayanan & Danyang, Xie & Zou, Heng-fu, 1998. "Should public capital be subsidized or provided?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 319-331, April.
    13. von Hagen, Jurgen & Harden, Ian J., 1995. "Budget processes and commitment to fiscal discipline," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 771-779, April.
    14. Xie, Danyang, 1997. "On Time Inconsistency: A Technical Issue in Stackelberg Differential Games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 76(2), pages 412-430, October.
    15. Chamley, Christophe, 1986. "Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(3), pages 607-622, May.
    16. Mr. Axel Schimmelpfennig & Nouriel Roubini & Paolo Manasse, 2003. "Predicting Sovereign Debt Crises," IMF Working Papers 2003/221, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Jones, Larry E & Manuelli, Rodolfo E & Rossi, Peter E, 1993. "Optimal Taxation in Models of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(3), pages 485-517, June.
    18. Glomm, Gerhard & Ravikumar, B., 1994. "Public investment in infrastructure in a simple growth model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 18(6), pages 1173-1187, November.
    19. Turnovsky, Stephen J., 1997. "Fiscal Policy In A Growing Economy With Public Capital," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 1(3), pages 615-639, September.
    20. Xie, Danyang, 1991. "Increasing Returns and Increasing Rates of Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(2), pages 429-435, April.
    21. Mr. Nigel A Chalk & Mr. Richard Hemming, 2000. "Assessing Fiscal Sustainability in Theory and Practice," IMF Working Papers 2000/081, International Monetary Fund.
    22. Chamley, Christophe, 1985. "Efficient Taxation in a Stylized Model of Intertemporal General Equilibrium," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 26(2), pages 451-468, June.
    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. Patrick Bolton & Haizhou Huang, 2017. "The Capital Structure of Nations," NBER Working Papers 23612, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Patrick Bolton & Haizhou Huang, 2018. "The Capital Structure of Nations [Welfare analysis of currency regimes with defaultable debts]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 22(1), pages 45-82.
    3. Mthuli Ncube & Zuzana Brixiová, 2015. "Public Debt Sustainability in Africa: Building Resilience and Challenges Ahead," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 33(5), pages 555-580, September.
    4. Berrittella, Maria & Zhang, Jian, 2015. "Fiscal sustainability in the EU: From the short-term risk to the long-term challenge," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 261-280.
    5. Afonso, António & Jalles, João Tovar, 2013. "Growth and productivity: The role of government debt," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 384-407.
    6. Xiao Cheng & Yanping Pu, 2017. "Effective Tax Rates, Spatial Spillover, and Economic Growth in China: An Empirical Study Based on the Spatial Durbin Model," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 18(1), pages 73-97, May.
    7. Mthuli Ncube & Zuzana Brixiova, 2015. "Working Paper 227 - Public Debt Sustainability in Africa: Building Resilience and Challenges Ahead," Working Paper Series 2170, African Development Bank.
    8. Bolton, Patrick & Huang, Haizhou, 2017. "The Capital Structure of Nations," CEPR Discussion Papers 12157, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    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. Turnovsky, S., 2000. "Growth in an Open Economy: some Recent Developments," Papers 5, Warwick - Development Economics Research Centre.
    2. Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti & Nouriel Roubini, 1995. "Growth Effects of Income and Consumption Taxes: Positive and Normative Analysis," Working Papers 95-18, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    3. Steven P. Cassou & Kevin J. Lansing, 1996. "Welfare, stabilization, or growth: a comparison of different fiscal objectives," Working Papers (Old Series) 9614, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    4. Guo, Jang-Ting & Lansing, Kevin J., 1999. "Optimal taxation of capital income with imperfectly competitive product markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 23(7), pages 967-995, June.
    5. Cassou, Steven P. & Lansing, Kevin J., 1998. "Optimal fiscal policy, public capital, and the productivity slowdown," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 22(6), pages 911-935, June.
    6. James B. Davies & Jinli Zeng & Jie Zhang, 2009. "Time‐consistent taxation in a dynastic family model with human and physical capital and a balanced government budget," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 42(3), pages 1023-1049, August.
    7. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    8. Dioikitopoulos, Evangelos V. & Kalyvitis, Sarantis, 2008. "Public capital maintenance and congestion: Long-run growth and fiscal policies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(12), pages 3760-3779, December.
    9. Enrique G. Mendoza & P. Marcelo Oviedo, 2009. "Public Debt, Fiscal Solvency and Macroeconomic Uncertainty in Latin America The Cases of Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico," Economía Mexicana NUEVA ÉPOCA, CIDE, División de Economía, vol. 0(2), pages 133-173, July-Dece.
    10. Chatterjee, Santanu & Mahbub Morshed, A.K.M., 2011. "Reprint to: Infrastructure provision and macroeconomic performance," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(9), pages 1405-1423, September.
    11. Malley, Jim & Philippopoulos, Apostolis & Economides, George, 2002. "Testing for tax smoothing in a general equilibrium model of growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-315, June.
    12. Marrero, Gustavo A. & Novales, Alfonso, 2005. "Growth and welfare: Distorting versus non-distorting taxes," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 403-433, September.
    13. Andreas Irmen & Johanna Kuehnel, 2009. "Productive Government Expenditure And Economic Growth," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 692-733, September.
    14. Theo Eicher & Stephen J. Turnovsky, 2000. "Scale, Congestion and Growth," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 67(267), pages 325-346, August.
    15. Claire Loupias & Bertrand Crettez & Isabelle Job, 1997. "Dette publique et croissance endogène," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 48(6), pages 1439-1455.
    16. Lansing, Kevin J., 1999. "Optimal redistributive capital taxation in a neoclassical growth model," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 423-453, September.
    17. Takeo Hori & Noritaka Maebayashi & Keiichi Morimoto, 2018. "Tax Evasion and Optimal Corporate Income Tax Rates in a Growing Economy," Discussion Papers 41, Meisei University, School of Economics.
    18. Minea, Alexandru, 2008. "The Role of Public Spending in the Growth Theory Evolution," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 5(2), pages 99-120, June.
    19. Ambler, Steve, 1999. "Les modèles à agent représentatif et la politique de taxation optimale," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 75(4), pages 539-557, décembre.
    20. Gopal Prasad Bhatta, PhD & Anu Mishra, 2020. "Estimating Optimum Growth-Maximizing Public Debt Threshold for Nepal," NRB Economic Review, Nepal Rastra Bank, Economic Research Department, vol. 32(2), pages 1-28, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fiscal sustainability; Sustainability frontier; Fiscal soundness;
    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
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • C61 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods; Programming Models; Mathematical and Simulation Modeling - - - Optimization Techniques; Programming Models; Dynamic Analysis

    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:cuf:journl:y:2008:v:9:i:2:p:239-251. 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: Qiang Gao (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emcufcn.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.