IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/jed/journl/v26y2001i1p149-160.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Testing the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem: Time Series Evidence from Greece

Author

Listed:
  • Kostas Drakos

    (Department of Economics, London Guildhall University)

Abstract

The paper explores the long-run relationship between government domestic borrowing and private savings for a small EU country. It represents an attempt to assess the relevance of Ricardian Equivalence in Greece. The empirical findings are that in accordance to the Ricardian Equivalence theorem prediction, government borrowing in Greece leads to an increase in household savings. However, the increased private savings do not completely offset increased government debt. In other words, contrary to the Ricardian Equivalence theorem, households to some extent perceive government bonds as net wealth and consequently increased their consumption. This behaviour can be thought as being the result of liquidity constraints faced by households and also myopic behaviour due to uncertainty regarding the future path of taxes.

Suggested Citation

  • Kostas Drakos, 2001. "Testing the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem: Time Series Evidence from Greece," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 26(1), pages 149-160, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:jed:journl:v:26:y:2001:i:1:p:149-160
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.jed.or.kr/full-text/26-1/drakos.PDF
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Gregory Mankiw, N., 1999. "Government debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1615-1669, Elsevier.
    2. Feldstein, Martin & Elmendorf, Douglas W, 1990. "Government Debt, Government Spending, and Private Sector Behavior Revisited: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 589-599, June.
    3. Graham, Fred C, 1995. "Government Debt, Government Spending, and Private-Sector Behavior: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1348-1356, December.
    4. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    5. Yotsuzuka, Toshiki, 1987. "Ricardian equivalence in the presence of capital market imperfections," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 411-436, September.
    6. Johansen, Soren & Juselius, Katarina, 1990. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Inference on Cointegration--With Applications to the Demand for Money," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 52(2), pages 169-210, May.
    7. Duane Rockerbie, 1997. "Are consumers Ricardian when some are liquidity constrained? Evidence for the United States," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(6), pages 821-827.
    8. Becker, Torbjorn, 1997. "An investigation of Ricardian equivalence in a common trends model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 405-431, August.
    9. Poterba, James M. & Summers, Lawrence H., 1987. "Finite lifetimes and the effects of budget deficits on national saving," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 369-391, September.
    10. Evans, Paul, 1988. "Are Consumers Ricardian? Evidence for the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(5), pages 983-1004, October.
    11. Osterwald-Lenum, Michael, 1992. "A Note with Quantiles of the Asymptotic Distribution of the Maximum Likelihood Cointegration Rank Test Statistics," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 54(3), pages 461-472, August.
    12. Bernheim, B Douglas & Bagwell, Kyle, 1988. "Is Everything Neutral?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(2), pages 308-338, April.
    13. Granger, C. W. J., 1981. "Some properties of time series data and their use in econometric model specification," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 121-130, May.
    14. Bohn, Henning, 1992. "Budget deficits and government accounting," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 1-83, December.
    15. Seater, John J, 1993. "Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 31(1), pages 142-190, March.
    16. Kormendi, Roger C & Meguire, Philip G, 1995. "Government Debt, Government Spending, and Private-Sector Behavior: Reply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(5), pages 1357-1361, December.
    17. Detken, Carsten, 1999. "Fiscal policy effectiveness and neutrality results in a non-Ricardian world," Working Paper Series 3, European Central Bank.
    18. Chan, Louis Kuo Chi, 1983. "Uncertainty and the neutrality of government financing policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 351-372.
    19. Kormendi, Roger C, 1983. "Government Debt, Government Spending, and Private Sector Behavior," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 994-1010, December.
    20. Blanchard, Olivier J, 1985. "Debt, Deficits, and Finite Horizons," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 93(2), pages 223-247, April.
    21. Johansen, Soren, 1988. "Statistical analysis of cointegration vectors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 231-254.
    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. Gogas, Periklis & Plakandaras, Vasilios & Papadimitriou, Theophilos, 2014. "Public debt and private consumption in OECD countries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 11(C), pages 1-7.
    2. Teboho Jeremiah Mosikari & Joel Hinaunye Eita, 2017. "Empirical test of the Ricardian Equivalence in the Kingdom of Lesotho," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(1), pages 1351674-135, January.
    3. Waqas, Muhammad & Awan, Masood Sarwar, 2011. "Are Pakistani Consumers Ricardian?," MPRA Paper 35375, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Yaya Keho, 2016. "Impact of Budget Deficit on Private Consumption inWAEMU Countries: Evidence from Pooled Mean Group Estimation," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 8(3), pages 189-195, March.
    5. Ahmet Salih İkiz, 2020. "Testing the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem: Time Series Evidence from Turkey," Economies, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-20, August.
    6. Saima Sarwar, 2015. "Revisiting Ricardian Equivalence Hypothesis (REH) For Pakistan Using Money Demand Function Approach," Journal of Empirical Economics, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 4(3), pages 154-166.
    7. Waqas, Muhamad & Awan, Masood Sarwar & Aslam, Muhammad Amir, 2011. "We are living on the cost of our children," MPRA Paper 32044, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Ian P. Cassar & Kurt Davison & Christian Xuereb, 2018. "Does the Ricardian Equivalence Theorem Capture the Consumption Behavior of Maltese Households?," International Journal of Economics and Finance, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 10(12), pages 1-77, December.
    9. Cosimo Magazzino, 2012. "Fiscal Policy, Consumption and Current Account in the European Countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 1330-1344.
    10. International Monetary Fund, 2005. "Norway: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2005/197, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Yoichi Matsubayashi & Takao Fujii, 2012. "Substitutability of Savings by Sectors: OECD Experiences," Discussion Papers 1215, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    12. Muhammad Waqas & Masood Sarwar Awan, 2012. "Exchange Rate, Interest Rate and Ricardian Equivalence Evidence from Pakistan," Romanian Economic Journal, Department of International Business and Economics from the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, vol. 0(SS), pages 249-269.

    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. Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Gregory Mankiw, N., 1999. "Government debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1615-1669, Elsevier.
    2. Roberto Ricciuti, 2003. "Assessing Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 55-78, February.
    3. Koumparoulis, Dimitrios, 2006. "Ευρωπαϊκή Δημοσιονομική Πολιτική Και Οικονομική Μεγέθυνση: Η Νεοκλασική Οικονομική Θεωρία Για Την Περίπτωση Της Ελλάδας [European Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth: The Neoclassical Economic Theory," MPRA Paper 44310, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption : Saving decisions : Testing the finite horizon model," Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    5. repec:zbw:bofrdp:1997_006 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Francesco Forte & Cosimo Magazzino, 2015. "Ricardian equivalence and twin deficits hypotheses in the euro area," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 17(2), pages 148-166, October.
    7. Brunila, Anne, 1997. "Current income and private consumption: Saving decisions: Testing the finite horizon model," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 6/1997, Bank of Finland.
    8. Agustín García & Julián Ramajo, "undated". "Los Efectos De La Política Fiscal Sobre El Consumo Privado: Nueva Evidencia Para El Caso Español," Working Papers 13-02 Classification-JEL , Instituto de Estudios Fiscales.
    9. Waqas, Muhamad & Awan, Masood Sarwar & Aslam, Muhammad Amir, 2011. "We are living on the cost of our children," MPRA Paper 32044, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. B. Douglas Bernheim, 1987. "Ricardian Equivalence: An Evaluation of Theory and Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1987, Volume 2, pages 263-316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Gianluigi Giorgioni & Ken Holden, 2003. "Ricardian equivalence, expansionary fiscal contraction and the stock market: a VECM approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(12), pages 1435-1443.
    12. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:5:y:2008:i:16:p:1-14 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Cosimo Magazzino, 2012. "Fiscal Policy, Consumption and Current Account in the European Countries," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 32(2), pages 1330-1344.
    14. António Afonso, 2008. "Euler testing Ricardo and Barro in the EU," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 5(16), pages 1-14.
    15. Brunila, Anne, 1996. "Fiscal policy and private consumption: Saving decisions: Evidence from Finland," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 28/1996, Bank of Finland.
    16. António Afonso, 2001. "Government indebtedness and european consumers behaviour," Working Papers Department of Economics 2001/12, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    17. Lorenzo Pozzi, 2003. "Tax Discounting in a High‐debt Economy," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(3), pages 261-282, July.
    18. Selahattin Dibooglu, 1997. "Accounting for US current account deficits: an empirical investigation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(6), pages 787-793.
    19. Becker, Torbjorn, 1997. "An investigation of Ricardian equivalence in a common trends model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 405-431, August.
    20. Yannis A. Monogios & Christos Pitelis, 2004. "On (Ultra) rationality and the corporate and government veils," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 72(3), pages 382-402, June.
    21. Saima Sarwar, 2015. "Revisiting Ricardian Equivalence Hypothesis (REH) For Pakistan Using Money Demand Function Approach," Journal of Empirical Economics, Research Academy of Social Sciences, vol. 4(3), pages 154-166.
    22. Brunila, Anne, 1996. "Fiscal policy and private consumption : Saving decisions : Evidence from Finland," Research Discussion Papers 28/1996, Bank of Finland.

    More about this item

    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:jed:journl:v:26:y:2001:i:1:p:149-160. 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: Sung Y. Park (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/eccaukr.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.