IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2507.13084.html

Do Governments React to Public Debt Accumulation? A Cross-Country Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Paolo Canofari
  • Alessandro Piergallini
  • Marco Tedeschi

Abstract

Do governments adjust budgetary policy to rising public debt, precluding fiscal unsustainability? Using budget data for 52 industrial and emerging economies since 1990, we apply panel methods accounting for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneous fiscal conduct. We find that a primary-balance rule with tax-smoothing motives and responsiveness to debt has robust explanatory power in describing fiscal behavior. Controlling for temporary output, temporary spending, and the current account balance, a 10-percentage-point increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio raises the long-run primary surplus-to-GDP ratio by 0.5 percentage points on average. Corrective adjustments hold across high- and low-debt countries and across industrial and emerging economies. Our results imply many governments pursue Ricardian policy designs, avoiding Ponzi-type financing.

Suggested Citation

  • Paolo Canofari & Alessandro Piergallini & Marco Tedeschi, 2025. "Do Governments React to Public Debt Accumulation? A Cross-Country Analysis," Papers 2507.13084, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2507.13084
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.13084
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. M. Hashem Pesaran, 2006. "Estimation and Inference in Large Heterogeneous Panels with a Multifactor Error Structure," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(4), pages 967-1012, July.
    2. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Ostry, Jonathan D., 2008. "International evidence on fiscal solvency: Is fiscal policy "responsible"?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 1081-1093, September.
    3. M. Hashem Pesaran, 2007. "A simple panel unit root test in the presence of cross-section dependence," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(2), pages 265-312.
    4. 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.
    5. Blomquist, Johan & Westerlund, Joakim, 2013. "Testing slope homogeneity in large panels with serial correlation," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 121(3), pages 374-378.
    6. John C. Driscoll & Aart C. Kraay, 1998. "Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimation With Spatially Dependent Panel Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 549-560, November.
    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. Saboori, Behnaz & Gholipour, Hassan F. & Rasoulinezhad, Ehsan & Ranjbar, Omid, 2022. "Renewable energy sources and unemployment rate: Evidence from the US states," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    2. Guven, Murat & Cetinguc, Basak & Guloglu, Bulent & Calisir, Fethi, 2022. "The effects of daily growth in COVID-19 deaths, cases, and governments’ response policies on stock markets of emerging economies," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    3. Piotr Ciżkowicz & Andrzej Rzońca & Rafał Trzeciakowski, 2015. "Windfall of Low Interest Payments and Fiscal Sustainability in the Euro Area: Analysis through Panel Fiscal Reaction Functions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(4), pages 475-510, November.
    4. Md. Saiful Islam & Anis ur Rehman & Imran Khan & Ibrahim Abdelrasuol & Md. Abu Raihan, 2024. "Remittance Outflow and Economic Growth Linkage: The Role of Trade,ICT, Human, and Physical Capital," SAGE Open, , vol. 14(2), pages 21582440241, June.
    5. António Afonso & José Carlos Coelho, 2022. "Public Finances Solvency in the Euro Area: True or False?," CESifo Working Paper Series 9935, CESifo.
    6. Afonso, António & Coelho, José Carlos, 2023. "Public finances solvency in the Euro Area," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 642-657.
    7. Veasna Trakem & Hongzhong Fan & Dyna Sam & Sokhan Chen, 2026. "How do agricultural trade liberalization, climate variability and change, and governance quality influence food security in ASEAN?," Food Security: The Science, Sociology and Economics of Food Production and Access to Food, Springer;The International Society for Plant Pathology, vol. 18(2), pages 495-540, April.
    8. Dierk Herzer, 2024. "A panel data analysis of the long-run effect of environmental taxes on R&D expenditures at the macro-level," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 44(3), pages 1169-1180.
    9. Mamba, Essotanam & Ali, Essossinam, 2022. "Do agricultural exports enhance agricultural (economic) growth? Lessons from ECOWAS countries," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 257-267.
    10. Chulan Lasantha Kukule Nawarathna, 2025. "The Nexus Between Female Labor Force Participation and Economic Development: A Global Study Across the Phases of Demographic Dividends," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 9(15), pages 426-449, April.
    11. Hussein Moghaddam & Robert M. Kunst, 2023. "The Role of Natural Gas in Mitigating Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Environmental Kuznets Curve Hypothesis for Major Gas-Producing Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(5), pages 1-20, February.
    12. 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.
    13. Yunus Karaömer & Arif Eser Guzel, 2024. "Effect of Economic Policy Uncertainty on Stock Returns: Analysing the Moderating Role of Government Size," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2024(1), pages 50-72.
    14. Boundi-Chraki, Fahd & Perrotini-Hernández, Ignacio, 2021. "Absolute cost advantage and sectoral competitiveness: Empirical evidence from NAFTA and the European Union," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 162-173.
    15. Adolfo Maza & Paula Gutiérrez-Portilla, 2022. "Outward FDI and exports relation: A heterogeneous panel approach dealing with cross-sectional dependence," International Economics, CEPII research center, issue 170, pages 174-189.
    16. Shreya Pal, 2024. "The International Capital Flows and Domestic Savings–domestic Investment Nexus: A Comparative Evidence Between Heterogeneous Developing Regions," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 13(2), pages 169-212, December.
    17. Daniel, Betty C. & Shiamptanis, Christos, 2013. "Pushing the limit? Fiscal policy in the European Monetary Union," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 2307-2321.
    18. Xiang Ma & Lin Ma & Rimsha Arshad & Hind Alofaysan, 2025. "Sustainable development in ASEAN: The role of trade diversification, government revenue, and natural resources," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(3), pages 3047-3076, August.
    19. Huntington, Hillard & Liddle, Brantley, 2022. "How energy prices shape OECD economic growth: Panel evidence from multiple decades," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    20. Asane-Otoo, Emmanuel, 2015. "Carbon footprint and emission determinants in Africa," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 426-435.

    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:arx:papers:2507.13084. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.