IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v12y2020i20p8505-d428377.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fiscal Sustainability in the European Countries: A Panel ARDL Approach and a Dynamic Panel Threshold Model

Author

Listed:
  • María del Carmen Ramos-Herrera

    (Department of Economic Analysis, Economic Theory, Autonomous University of Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain)

  • María A. Prats

    (Department of Applied Economics, University of Murcia, Avda. Teniente Flomesta, 5, 30003 Murcia, Spain)

Abstract

We analyze the fiscal sustainability hypothesis for a panel of 20 European Union countries from 2000 to 2019. In particular, we employ new econometric methodologies that, to the best of our knowledge, are applied for the first time to the study of sovereign fiscal policy sustainability in these economies. Specifically, we estimate the panel ARDL technique, distinguishing between short- and long-run coefficients because the order of integration of our variables is not the same. Moreover, a panel threshold model with endogeneity is considered to investigate whether, departing from a particular threshold, there is different behavior between the government primary balance and public debt, both taken as a ratio of potential GDP. Finally, the panel Granger causality test is implemented to determine the direction of causality or the existence of bidirectional causality.

Suggested Citation

  • María del Carmen Ramos-Herrera & María A. Prats, 2020. "Fiscal Sustainability in the European Countries: A Panel ARDL Approach and a Dynamic Panel Threshold Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-14, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:20:p:8505-:d:428377
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/20/8505/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/20/8505/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Loayza, Norman V. & Ranciere, Romain, 2006. "Financial Development, Financial Fragility, and Growth," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(4), pages 1051-1076, June.
    2. Antonio Fatás & Ilian Mihov, 2010. "The Euro and Fiscal Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Europe and the Euro, pages 287-324, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Atish R. Ghosh & Jun I. Kim & Enrique G. Mendoza & Jonathan D. Ostry & Mahvash S. Qureshi, 2013. "Fiscal Fatigue, Fiscal Space and Debt Sustainability in Advanced Economies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 4-30, February.
    4. 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.
    5. Lars P. Feld & Ekkehard A. Köhler & Julia Wolfinger, 2020. "Modeling fiscal sustainability in dynamic macro-panels with heterogeneous effects: evidence from German federal states," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(1), pages 215-239, February.
    6. Pedroni, Peter, 2004. "Panel Cointegration: Asymptotic And Finite Sample Properties Of Pooled Time Series Tests With An Application To The Ppp Hypothesis," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 597-625, June.
    7. Campos, Nauro F. & Kinoshita, Yuko, 2008. "Foreign Direct Investment and Structural Reforms: Evidence from Eastern Europe and Latin America," IZA Discussion Papers 3332, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Westerlund, Joakim & Edgerton, David L., 2007. "A panel bootstrap cointegration test," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 97(3), pages 185-190, December.
    9. António Afonso & Christophe Rault, 2010. "What do we really know about fiscal sustainability in the EU? A panel data diagnostic," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(4), pages 731-755, January.
    10. Dumitrescu, Elena-Ivona & Hurlin, Christophe, 2012. "Testing for Granger non-causality in heterogeneous panels," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 1450-1460.
    11. Magazzino, Cosimo & Brady, Gordon L. & Forte, Francesco, 2019. "A panel data analysis of the fiscal sustainability of G-7 countries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    12. Kao, Chihwa, 1999. "Spurious regression and residual-based tests for cointegration in panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1), pages 1-44, May.
    13. Semmler, Willi & Greiner, Alfred & Diallo, Bobo & Rezai, Armon & Rajaram, Anand, 2007. "Fiscal policy, public expenditure composition, and growth theory and empirics," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4405, The World Bank.
    14. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
    15. Kyung-woo Lee & Jong-Hee Kim & Taeyoon Sung, 2018. "A test of fiscal sustainability in the EU countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(5), pages 1170-1196, October.
    16. Peter Pedroni, 1999. "Critical Values for Cointegration Tests in Heterogeneous Panels with Multiple Regressors," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 653-670, November.
    17. Bajo-Rubio, Oscar & Díaz-Roldán, Carmen & Esteve, Vicente, 2009. "Deficit sustainability and inflation in EMU: An analysis from the Fiscal Theory of the Price Level," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 525-539, December.
    18. James Payne, 1997. "International evidence on the sustainability of budget deficits," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(12), pages 775-779.
    19. António Afonso & João Jalles, 2014. "A longer-run perspective on fiscal sustainability," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 821-847, November.
    20. Beqiraj, Elton & Fedeli, Silvia & Forte, Francesco, 2018. "Public debt sustainability: An empirical study on OECD countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 238-248.
    21. Choi, In, 2001. "Unit root tests for panel data," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 249-272, April.
    22. Matthew B. Canzoneri & Robert E. Cumby & Behzad T. Diba, 2001. "Is the Price Level Determined by the Needs of Fiscal Solvency?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1221-1238, December.
    23. Seo, Myung Hwan & Shin, Yongcheol, 2016. "Dynamic panels with threshold effect and endogeneity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 195(2), pages 169-186.
    24. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    25. Ahmed, Shaghil & Rogers, John H., 1995. "Government budget deficits and trade deficits Are present value constraints satisfied in long-term data?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 351-374, November.
    26. Hansen, Bruce E., 1999. "Threshold effects in non-dynamic panels: Estimation, testing, and inference," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 345-368, December.
    27. Ant�nio Afonso & João Tovar Jalles, 2015. "Fiscal sustainability: a panel assessment for advanced economies," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(11), pages 925-929, July.
    28. Granger, C W J, 1969. "Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-Spectral Methods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(3), pages 424-438, July.
    29. Joakim Westerlund, 2005. "New Simple Tests for Panel Cointegration," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(3), pages 297-316.
    30. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Smith, Ron, 1995. "Estimating long-run relationships from dynamic heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 79-113, July.
    31. Quintos, Carmela E, 1995. "Sustainability of the Deficit Process with Structural Shifts," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(4), pages 409-417, October.
    32. Paniagua, Jordi & Sapena, Juan & Tamarit, Cecilio, 2017. "Fiscal sustainability in EMU countries: A continued fiscal commitment?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 85-97.
    33. Pedroni, Peter, 1999. "Critical Values for Cointegration Tests in Heterogeneous Panels with Multiple Regressors," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(0), pages 653-670, Special I.
    34. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    35. António Afonso & João Tovar Jalles, 2016. "The elusive character of fiscal sustainability," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(28), pages 2651-2664, June.
    36. Canagarajah, Sudharshan & Brownbridge, Martin & Paliu, Anca & Dumitru, Ionut, 2012. "The challenges to long run fiscal sustainability in Romania," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5927, The World Bank.
    37. Banerjee, Anindya & Carrion-i-Silvestre, Josep Lluís, 2006. "Cointegration in panel data with breaks and cross-section dependence," Working Paper Series 591, European Central Bank.
    38. Gordon L. Brady & Cosimo Magazzino, 2018. "Sustainability and comovement of government debt in EMU Countries: A panel data analysis," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 189-202, July.
    39. Harris, Richard D. F. & Tzavalis, Elias, 1999. "Inference for unit roots in dynamic panels where the time dimension is fixed," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 201-226, August.
    40. Robert Flood & Nancy Marion, 2009. "Getting Shut Out of the International Capital Markets: It Doesn't Take Much," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(5), pages 879-889, November.
    41. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    42. Brady, Gordon L. & Magazzino, Cosimo, 2018. "Government debt in EMU countries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 18(C), pages 1-1.
    43. Athanasios Papadopoulos & Moïse Sidiropoulos, 1999. "The sustainability of fiscal policies in the European Union," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 5(3), pages 289-307, August.
    44. Bohn, Henning, 2007. "Are stationarity and cointegration restrictions really necessary for the intertemporal budget constraint?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1837-1847, October.
    45. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    46. Levin, Andrew & Lin, Chien-Fu & James Chu, Chia-Shang, 2002. "Unit root tests in panel data: asymptotic and finite-sample properties," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 108(1), pages 1-24, May.
    47. Mahdavi, Saeid & Westerlund, Joakim, 2011. "Fiscal stringency and fiscal sustainability: Panel evidence from the American state and local governments," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 953-969.
    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. Bodo Herzog, 2021. "Sustainable Consumer Tax Evasion Theory under Information Inattention," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-13, January.
    2. Srivastava, Dinesh Kumar & Bharadwaj, Muralikrishna & Kapur, Tarrung & Trehan, Ragini, 2021. "Examining sustainability of government debt in India: post Covid prospects," MPRA Paper 108342, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Srivastava, Dinesh Kumar & Trehan, Ragini & Bharadwaj, Muralikrishna & Kapur, Tarrung, 2021. "Revisiting fiscal responsibility norms: a cross country analysis of the impact of Covid-19," MPRA Paper 108903, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Gozde Es POLAT & Onur POLAT, 2021. "Fiscal sustainability analysis in EU countries: a dynamic macro-panel approach," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 12, pages 219-241, June.
    5. Magazzino, Cosimo & Mutascu, Mihai Ioan, 2022. "The Italian fiscal sustainability in a long-run perspective," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 26(C).
    6. Gonzalo F. de-Córdoba & Benedetto Molinari & José L. Torres, 2021. "Public Debt Frontier: A Python Toolkit for Analyzing Public Debt Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-25, November.
    7. Mohammed A. M. Usman & Huseyin Ozdeser & Behiye Çavuşoğlu & Umar Shuaibu Aliyu, 2022. "On the Sustainable Economic Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Do Remittances, Human Capital Flight, and Brain Drain Matter?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-20, February.

    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. António Afonso & Christophe Rault, 2010. "What do we really know about fiscal sustainability in the EU? A panel data diagnostic," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 145(4), pages 731-755, January.
    2. Magazzino, Cosimo & Brady, Gordon L. & Forte, Francesco, 2019. "A panel data analysis of the fiscal sustainability of G-7 countries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 20(C).
    3. Piotr Krajewski & Michał Mackiewicz & Agata Szymańska, 2016. "Fiscal Sustainability in Central and Eastern European Countries - A Post-Crisis Assessment," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2016(2), pages 175-188.
    4. Alessio Ciarlone, 2019. "The relationship between financial development and growth: the case of emerging Europe," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 521, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    5. António Afonso & João Tovar Jalles, 2012. "Revisiting fiscal sustainability: panel cointegration and structural breaks in OECD countries," Working Papers Department of Economics 2012/29, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    6. María del Carmen Ramos-Herrera & Simón Sosvilla-Rivero, 2020. "Fiscal Sustainability in Aging Societies: Evidence from Euro Area Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-20, December.
    7. Gharehgozli, Orkideh, 2021. "An empirical comparison between a regression framework and the Synthetic Control Method," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 70-81.
    8. Karikallio, Hanna, 2015. "Cross-commodity Price Transmission and Integration of the EU Livestock Market of Pork and Beef: Panel Time-series Approach," 2015 Conference, August 9-14, 2015, Milan, Italy 211832, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Afonso, António & Rault, Christophe, 2015. "Multi-step analysis of public finances sustainability," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 199-209.
    10. Cho, Dooyeon & Lee, Kyung-woo, 2022. "Population aging and fiscal sustainability: Nonlinear evidence from Europe," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    11. Phuc Canh, Nguyen & Trung Thong, Nguyen, 2020. "Nexus between financialisation and natural resources rents: Empirical evidence in a global sample," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    12. R. Golinelli & I. Mammi & A. Musolesi, 2018. "Parameter heterogeneity, persistence and cross-sectional dependence: new insights on fiscal policy reaction functions for the Euro area," Working Papers wp1120, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    13. Tarik Dogru & Umit Bulut & Ercan Sirakaya-Turk, 2021. "Modeling tourism demand: Theoretical and empirical considerations for future research," Tourism Economics, , vol. 27(4), pages 874-889, June.
    14. Chen, Ping-Yu & Chen, Sheng-Tung & Hsu, Chia-Sheng & Chen, Chi-Chung, 2016. "Modeling the global relationships among economic growth, energy consumption and CO2 emissions," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 420-431.
    15. Owusu Benjamin, 2021. "Fiscal Sustainability Hypothesis Test in Central and Eastern Europe: A Panel Data Perspective," Central European Economic Journal, Sciendo, vol. 8(55), pages 285-312, January.
    16. António Afonso & Christophe Rault, 2008. "3-Step Analysis of Public Finances Sustainability: the Case of the European Union," Working Papers hal-00322086, HAL.
    17. Sung, Bongsuk & Song, Woo-Yong & Park, Sang-Do, 2018. "How foreign direct investment affects CO2 emission levels in the Chinese manufacturing industry: Evidence from panel data," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 320-331.
    18. Betty Daniel & Christos Shiamptanis, 2008. "Fiscal Policy in the European Monetary Union," Discussion Papers 08-11, University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics.
    19. 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.
    20. Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2015. "Fiscal Transfers and Fiscal Sustainability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(5), pages 975-1005, August.

    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:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:20:p:8505-:d:428377. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.