IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apeclt/v3y1996i7p487-490.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Are the Greek budget deficits too large?

Author

Listed:
  • Stilianos Fountas
  • Jyh-Lin Wu

Abstract

We use a residual-based cointegration test suggested by Gregory and Hansen that allows for the determination of a structural break in the cointegration vector to test for the sustainability of Greek fiscal deficits over the 1958-92 period. This relatively recent test leads to a different result from that derived from standard Engle-Granger cointegration tests. The use of the conventional Engle-Granger test implies no cointegration between tax revenues and interest-inclusive government expenditures. On the other hand, using the Gregory-Hansen test we conclude that tax revenues and interest-inclusive government expenditures are cointegrated and a structural break in the cointegrating vector took place in either 1981 or 1983. Our result of cointegration with a structural break is consistent with a strict interpretation of the government's intertemporal budget constraint since it implies a zero discounted value of the public debt. However, since the cointegration-regression slope parameter is significantly less than one (when tax revenues are regressed on expenditure), the undiscounted value of the public debt is different from zero. This means that the government has incentives to default on its debt and, therefore, Greek budget deficit policy is not sustainable.

Suggested Citation

  • Stilianos Fountas & Jyh-Lin Wu, 1996. "Are the Greek budget deficits too large?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(7), pages 487-490.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:3:y:1996:i:7:p:487-490
    DOI: 10.1080/758540812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.informaworld.com/openurl?genre=article&doi=10.1080/758540812&magic=repec&7C&7C8674ECAB8BB840C6AD35DC6213A474B5
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/758540812?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Phillips, P C B, 1987. "Time Series Regression with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 277-301, March.
    2. Gregory, Allan W. & Hansen, Bruce E., 1996. "Residual-based tests for cointegration in models with regime shifts," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 99-126, January.
    3. West, Kenneth D, 1988. "Asymptotic Normality, When Regressors Have a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 56(6), pages 1397-1417, November.
    4. Haug, Alfred A, 1991. "Cointegration and Government Borrowing Constraints: Evidence for the United States," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 9(1), pages 97-101, January.
    5. Phillips, P C B, 1987. "Time Series Regression with a Unit Root," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 277-301, March.
    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. Munawar-Shah, Syed & Abdul-Majid, Mariani & Hussain-Shah, Syed, 2014. "Assessing Fiscal Sustainability for SAARC and IMT-GT Countries," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 5(2), pages 26-40.
    2. Maria do Rosario Correia & Reinhard Neck & Theodore Panagiotidis & Christian Richter, 2008. "An empirical investigation of the sustainability of the public deficit in Portugal," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 209-223, July.

    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. Wu, Jyh-lin, 1998. "Are budget deficits "too large"?: The evidence from Taiwan," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 519-528.
    2. Shruti SHASTRI & A.K. GIRI & Geetilaxmi MOHAPATRA, 2017. "An empirical assessment of fiscal sustainability for selected South Asian economies," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(1(610), S), pages 163-178, Spring.
    3. Nicholas Apergis & Konstantinos Katrakilidis & Nicholas Tabakis, 2000. "Current account deficit sustainability: The case of Greece," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(9), pages 599-603.
    4. Stilianos Fountas & Jyh-lin Wu, 1997. "Tests for Interest Rate Convergence and Structural Breaks in the EMS," Working Papers 15, National University of Ireland Galway, Department of Economics, revised 1997.
    5. Francisco de Castro & José M. González-Páramo & Pablo Hernández de Cos, 2001. "Evaluating the dynamics of fiscal policy in Spain: patterns of interdependence and consistency of public expenditure and revenues," Working Papers 0103, Banco de España.
    6. António Afonso, 2005. "Fiscal Sustainability: The Unpleasant European Case," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 61(1), pages 19-44, March.
    7. Francisco De Castro & Pablo Hernández De Cos, 2002. "On the sustainability of the Spanish public budget performance," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 160(1), pages 9-28, march.
    8. Shruti SHASTRI & A.K. GIRI & Geetilaxmi MOHAPATRA, 2017. "An empirical assessment of fiscal sustainability for selected South Asian economies," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(1(610), S), pages 163-178, Spring.
    9. Kuo, Biing-Shen, 1998. "Test for partial parameter instability in regressions with I(1) processes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 337-368, June.
    10. Burcu Kiran, 2014. "Testing the impact of educational expenditures on economic growth: new evidence from Latin American countries," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 1181-1190, May.
    11. Campos, Julia & Ericsson, Neil R. & Hendry, David F., 1996. "Cointegration tests in the presence of structural breaks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 187-220, January.
    12. Mylonidis, Nikolaos & Stamopoulou, Ioanna, 2011. "The role of monetary policy in managing the euro - dollar exchange rate," MPRA Paper 29291, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Voronkova, Svitlana, 2004. "Equity market integration in Central European emerging markets: A cointegration analysis with shifting regimes," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 633-647.
    14. Yoichi Arai & Takeo Hoshi, 2004. "Monetary Policy in the Great Recession," Discussion papers 04024, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    15. Yarovaya, Larisa & Lau, Marco Chi Keung, 2016. "Stock market comovements around the Global Financial Crisis: Evidence from the UK, BRICS and MIST markets," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 605-619.
    16. Dimitriou, Dimitrios & Simos, Theodore, 2013. "Testing purchasing power parity for Japan and the US: A structural-break approach," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 53-59.
    17. Cunado, Juncal & Perez de Gracia, Fernando, 2003. "Do oil price shocks matter? Evidence for some European countries," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 137-154, March.
    18. Amigo Dobaño, Lucy, 2000. "Cointegration Analysis: Exchange Rate Markets Of The European Monetary System," ERSA conference papers ersa00p270, European Regional Science Association.
    19. Luca Cattivelli & Federico Antonioli, 2023. "When cointegration is interrupted: Price transmission analysis in the Italian dairy‐feed industry," Agribusiness, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(3), pages 744-761, July.
    20. Paresh Kumar Narayan & Russell Smyth, 2004. "Modelling the linkages between the Australian and G7 stock markets: common stochastic trends and regime shifts," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(14), pages 991-1004.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus

    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:taf:apeclt:v:3:y:1996:i:7:p:487-490. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEL20 .

    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.