IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ecb/ecbrbu/20200067.html

Public spending at the effective lower bound: how significant are the sustainability risks?

Author

Listed:
  • Battistini, Niccolò
  • Callegari, Giovanni

Abstract

With monetary policy constrained by the effective lower bound (ELB), the debt sustainability implications of a fiscal expansion are a pressing concern. In a general equilibrium model of fiscal limits, we find that the adverse impact of a fiscal expansion on sustainability is muted at the ELB compared with normal times. Getting the timing of public spending increases right, however, is essential for containing sustainability risks. JEL Classification: E52, E61, E63

Suggested Citation

  • Battistini, Niccolò & Callegari, Giovanni, 2020. "Public spending at the effective lower bound: how significant are the sustainability risks?," Research Bulletin, European Central Bank, vol. 67.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbrbu:2020:0067:
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/economic-research/resbull/2020/html/ecb.rb200228~a580ab6c51.en.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/economic-research/resbull/2020/html/ecb.rb200228~a580ab6c51.en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Olivier J Blanchard, 2019. "Public Debt: Fiscal and Welfare Costs in a Time of Low Interest Rates," Policy Briefs PB19-2, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    2. Olivier Blanchard, 2019. "Public Debt and Low Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1197-1229, April.
    3. Bi, Huixin, 2012. "Sovereign default risk premia, fiscal limits, and fiscal policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 389-410.
    4. Campbell Leith & Eric Leeper, 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary-Fiscal Phenomenon," Working Papers 2016_01, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    5. Campbell Leith & Eric Leeper, 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary-Fiscal Phenomenon," Working Papers 2016_01, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    6. Leeper, E.M. & Leith, C., 2016. "Understanding Inflation as a Joint Monetary–Fiscal Phenomenon," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2305-2415, Elsevier.
    7. Battistini, Niccolò & Callegari, Giovanni & Zavalloni, Luca, 2019. "Dynamic fiscal limits and monetary-fiscal policy interactions," Working Paper Series 2268, European Central Bank.
    8. Lawrence Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 2011. "When Is the Government Spending Multiplier Large?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(1), pages 78-121.
    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. Mitsuru Katagiri & Yusuke Oh & Yasutaka Ogawa & Nao Sudo & Takeki Sunakawa, 2024. "On the Interaction between Monetary and Fiscal Policy: Developments in Macroeconomics since the Global Financial Crisis," IMES Discussion Paper Series 24-E-12, Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies, Bank of Japan.
    2. Jiang, Zhengyang & Lustig, Hanno & Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn & Xiaolan, Mindy Z., 2026. "Manufacturing risk-free government debt," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    3. Bonam, Dennis & Ciccarelli, Matteo & Gomes, Sandra & Aldama, Pierre & Bańkowski, Krzysztof & Buss, Ginters & da Costa, José Cardoso & Christoffel, Kai & Elfsbacka Schmöller, Michaela & Jacquinot, Pasc, 2024. "Challenges for monetary and fiscal policy interactions in the post-pandemic era," Occasional Paper Series 337, European Central Bank.
    4. John Cochrane, 2022. "The fiscal root of inflation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 22-40, July.
    5. Hauptmeier, Sebastian & Kamps, Christophe, 2022. "Debt policies in the aftermath of COVID-19 — The SGP’s debt benchmark revisited," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. Stéphane Dupraz & Anna Rogantini Picco, 2024. "Fiscal Requirements for Price Stability When Households are Not Ricardian," Working papers 981, Banque de France.
    7. Luca Metelli & Kevin Pallara, 2020. "Fiscal space and the size of the fiscal multiplier," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1293, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. Darracq Pariès, Matthieu & Papadopoulou, Niki & Müller, Georg, 2020. "Fiscal multipliers with financial fragmentation risk and interactions with monetary policy," Working Paper Series 2418, European Central Bank.
    9. Hauptmeier, Sebastian & Kamps, Christophe & Radke, Lucas, 2022. "Counter-cyclical fiscal rules and the zero lower bound," Working Paper Series 2715, European Central Bank.
    10. Tatiana Kirsanova & Campbell Leith & Ding Liu, 2024. "Central Bank Independence, Government Debt and the Re-Normalization of Interest Rates," Working Papers 2024_10, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    11. Kirsanova, Tatiana & Leith, Campbell & Machado, Celsa & Ribeiro, Ana Paula, 2025. "(Re)Evaluating recent macroeconomic policy in the US," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 178(C).
    12. Beck-Friis, Peder & Willems, Tim, 2017. "Dissecting fiscal multipliers under the fiscal theory of the price level," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 62-83.
    13. Ricardo Reis, 2016. "Can the Central Bank Alleviate Fiscal Burdens?," Discussion Papers 1701, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    14. Gergő Motyovszki & Philipp Pfeiffer & Jan in ’t Veld, 2024. "The Implications of Public Investment for Debt Sustainability," European Economy - Discussion Papers 204, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    15. Giancarlo Corsetti & Bartosz Maćkowiak, 2024. "Gambling to Preserve Price (and Fiscal) Stability," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 72(1), pages 32-57, March.
    16. Hollmayr, Josef & Kühl, Michael, 2019. "Monetary–fiscal interaction and quantitative easing," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 200-207.
    17. Mitsuhiro Okano, 2026. "A Unified Framework for Equilibrium Selection in DSGE Models," Papers 2601.19329, arXiv.org.
    18. Ignacio Lozano-Espitia & Fernando Arias-Rodríguez & Jesus Bejarano & Andres Gonzalez & Clark Granger-Castaño & Franz Hamann & Yurany Hernández-Turca & Juan Manuel Julio-Román & Martha López & Juan C. , 2019. "La política fiscal y la estabilización macroeconómica en Colombia," Revista ESPE - Ensayos sobre Política Económica, Banco de la Republica de Colombia, issue 90, pages 1-60, April.
    19. Rosaria Rita Canale & Rita Siano, 2024. "Is government debt a burden on workers' income share? An investigation on Italian dynamics," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 41(2), pages 543-563, July.
    20. John Cochrane, 2022. "A fiscal theory of monetary policy with partially repaid long-term debt," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 45, pages 1-21, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination
    • 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

    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:ecb:ecbrbu:2020:0067:. 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: Official Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emieude.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.