IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/streco/v30y2014icp101-119.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Structural origins of debt-sustainability in mature and transition economies: Domar, Balassa–Samuelson and Maastricht

Author

Listed:
  • Borgersen, Trond-Arne
  • King, Roswitha M.

Abstract

This paper analyses the relation between the structure of GDP and a country's debt sustainability. A two-sector model with endogenous relative sector sizes is developed to formally show that under certain conditions the debt sustainability, measured as the limiting value of the debt-to-GDP ratio, of transition economies exceeds that of mature market economies. This ‘advantage’ comes from structural factors: sectoral imbalances of growth and shifts in sectoral composition of GDP. Furthermore, among transition economies those with relatively higher structural flexibility can sustain relatively higher debt-to-GDP ratios. How much debt relative to GDP a country can sustain is shown to be highly context specific and depends on the economic structure, composition of growth, structural flexibility, and the prevailing incentives for restructuring. But should a country carry a high debt level relative to GDP just because it can? The paper answers this question by distinguishing between two categories of transition economies: Those that could and should and those that could but should not exploit their capacity to sustain high debt levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Borgersen, Trond-Arne & King, Roswitha M., 2014. "Structural origins of debt-sustainability in mature and transition economies: Domar, Balassa–Samuelson and Maastricht," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 101-119.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:30:y:2014:i:c:p:101-119
    DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2014.03.002
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X14000289
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.strueco.2014.03.002?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Trond-Arne Borgersen & Roswitha M King, 2013. "Relating Debt to Inflation among Transition Economies: A Blueprint from Mature Economies?," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 55(4), pages 606-635, December.
    2. Henning Bohn, 1998. "The Behavior of U. S. Public Debt and Deficits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 949-963.
    3. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2010. "Growth in a Time of Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 573-578, May.
    4. Wilcox, David W, 1989. "The Sustainability of Government Deficits: Implications of the Present-Value Borrowing Constraint," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 21(3), pages 291-306, August.
    5. Willem H. Buiter, 2006. "The 'Sense and Nonsense of Maastricht' Revisited: What Have we Learnt about Stabilization in EMU?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44, pages 687-710, November.
    6. Evangelia Vourvachaki, 2005. "Information and Communication Technologies in a Multi-Sector Endogenous Growth Model," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2005 10, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    7. Aguiar, Mark & Gopinath, Gita, 2006. "Defaultable debt, interest rates and the current account," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 64-83, June.
    8. Echevarria, Cristina, 1997. "Changes in Sectoral Composition Associated with Economic Growth," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 38(2), pages 431-452, May.
    9. Haliassos, Michael & Tobin, James, 1990. "The macroeconomics of government finance," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 17, pages 889-959, Elsevier.
    10. 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.
    11. Bohn, Henning, 1995. "The Sustainability of Budget Deficits in a Stochastic Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 257-271, February.
    12. El-hadj M Bah & Josef C Brada, 2009. "Total Factor Productivity Growth, Structural Change and Convergence in the New Members of the European Union," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 51(4), pages 421-446, December.
    13. A. D. Roy, 1951. "Some Thoughts On The Distribution Of Earnings," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 3(2), pages 135-146.
    14. Borgersen, Trond-Arne & King, Roswitha M., 2011. "Reallocation and restructuring: A generalization of the Balassa–Samuelson effect," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 287-298.
    15. Persson, Torsten, 1985. "Deficits and intergenerational welfare in open economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 67-84, August.
    16. Victor R. Fuchs, 1968. "The Service Economy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fuch68-1, March.
    17. Willem H. Buiter, 2006. "The ‘Sense and Nonsense of Maastricht’ Revisited: What Have we Learnt about Stabilization in EMU?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(4), pages 687-710, November.
    18. Allan G. B. Fisher, 1939. "Production, Primary, Secondary And Tertiary," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 15(1), pages 24-38, June.
    19. Victor R. Fuchs, 1968. "Some Implications of the Growth of a Service Economy," NBER Chapters, in: The Service Economy, pages 183-199, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Bo??tjan Jazbec, 2002. "Balassa-Samuelson Effect in Transition Economies: The Case of Slovenia," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 507, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    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. Liudmila Malyshava, 2018. "External Instability in Transition: Applying Minsky's Theory of Financial Fragility to International Markets," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_909, Levy Economics Institute.

    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. Maciej Wysocki & Cezary Wójcik, 2018. "Fiscal Sustainability in the EU After the Global Crisis: Is there any Progress?," CESifo Working Paper Series 7230, CESifo.
    2. Herrendorf, Berthold & Rogerson, Richard & Valentinyi, Ákos, 2014. "Growth and Structural Transformation," Handbook of Economic Growth, in: Philippe Aghion & Steven Durlauf (ed.), Handbook of Economic Growth, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 6, pages 855-941, Elsevier.
    3. Yoshida, Motonori, 2023. "Chronological changes of government sectors’ fiscal policies and fiscal sustainability in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    4. Maciej Wysocki & Cezary Wójcik, 2021. "Fiscal sustainability in the EU after the global crisis: Is there any progress? Evidence from Poland," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 3997-4012, July.
    5. Malte Rengel, 2020. "Sustainability of European fiscal balances: Just a statistical artifact?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1681-1712, April.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Potrafke, Niklas & Reischmann, Markus, 2014. "Explosive Target balances of the German Bundesbank," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 439-444.
    9. Escario, Regina & Gadea, María Dolores & Sabaté, Marcela, 2012. "Multicointegration, seigniorage and fiscal sustainability. Spain 1857–2000," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 270-283.
    10. Reicher, Claire, 2014. "Systematic fiscal policy and macroeconomic performance: A critical overview of the literature," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-37.
    11. Gang Gong & Alfred Greiner & Willi Semmler, 2001. "Growth Effects of Fiscal Policy and Debt Sustainability in the EU," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 28(1), pages 3-19, March.
    12. Bodo Herzog, 2010. "Anwendung des Nachhaltigkeitsansatzes von Bohn zur Etablierung eines Frühindikators in den öffentlichen Finanzen Beitrag zur aktuellen Debatte der Föderalismuskommission II," Credit and Capital Markets, Credit and Capital Markets, vol. 43(2), pages 183-206.
    13. Dietrich, Andreas & Krüger, Jens J., 2010. "Numerical explorations of the Ngai-Pissarides model of growth and structural change," Darmstadt Discussion Papers in Economics 199, Darmstadt University of Technology, Department of Law and Economics.
    14. Maciej WYSOCKI & Cezary WÓJCIK, 2021. "Fiscal Sustainability in Poland: How Did the Public Policy Shift of 2016–2019 Impact the Country’s Long-Term," Ekonomista, Polskie Towarzystwo Ekonomiczne, issue 6, pages 777-798.
    15. Hiraga, Kazuki, 2016. "Fiscal stabilization rule and overlapping generations," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 313-324.
    16. Alberto Bagnai, 2004. "Keynesian And Neoclassical Fiscal Sustainability Indicators, With Applications To Emu Member Countries," Public Economics 0411005, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Vito Polito & Mike Wickens, 2005. "Measuring Fiscal Sustainability," CDMA Conference Paper Series 0503, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis.
    18. Jakob Korbinian Eberl, 2016. "The Collateral Framework of the Eurosystem and Its Fiscal Implications," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 69.
    19. Helmut Herwartz & Malte Rengel, 2018. "Size-corrected inference in fiscal policy reaction functions: a three country assessment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 391-416, September.
    20. Alfred Greiner & Uwe Koeller & Willi Semmler, 2005. "Testing Sustainability of German Fiscal Policy. Evidence for the Period 1960 – 2003," CESifo Working Paper Series 1386, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Debt sustainability; Growth; Transition; Stability; Economic structure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P24 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - National Income, Product, and Expenditure; Money; Inflation

    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:eee:streco:v:30:y:2014:i:c:p:101-119. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/525148 .

    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.