IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_1446.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Sustainability of Fiscal Policy in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Henning Bohn

Abstract

The paper examines the sustainability of U.S. fiscal policy, finding substantial evidence in favor. I summarize the U.S. fiscal record from 1792-2003, critically review sustainability conditions and their testable implications, and apply them to U.S. data. I particularly emphasize the ramifications of economic growth. A “growth dividend” has historically covered the entire interest bill on the U.S. debt. Unit root tests on real series, unscaled by GDP, are distorted by the series’ severe heteroskedasticity. The most credible evidence in favor of sustainability is the robust positive response of primary surpluses to fluctuations in the debt-GDP ratio.

Suggested Citation

  • Henning Bohn, 2005. "The Sustainability of Fiscal Policy in the United States," CESifo Working Paper Series 1446, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_1446
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp1446.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Beveridge, Stephen & Nelson, Charles R., 1981. "A new approach to decomposition of economic time series into permanent and transitory components with particular attention to measurement of the `business cycle'," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 151-174.
    2. 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.
    3. Andrew B. Abel & N. Gregory Mankiw & Lawrence H. Summers & Richard J. Zeckhauser, 1989. "Assessing Dynamic Efficiency: Theory and Evidence," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 56(1), pages 1-19.
    4. 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.
    5. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1990. "Unit roots in real GNP: Do we know, and do we care?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 7-61, January.
    6. 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.
    7. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    8. Trehan, Bharat & Walsh, Carl E, 1991. "Testing Intertemporal Budget Constraints: Theory and Applications to U.S. Federal Budget and Current Account Deficits," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(2), pages 206-223, May.
    9. Trehan, Bharat & Walsh, Carl E., 1988. "Common trends, the government's budget constraint, and revenue smoothing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 425-444.
    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. Georgios Chortareas & George Kapetanios & Merih Uctum, 2008. "Nonlinear Alternatives to Unit Root Tests and Public Finances Sustainability: Some Evidence from Latin American and Caribbean Countries," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 70(5), pages 645-663, October.
    4. Aldama, Pierre & Creel, Jérôme, 2019. "Fiscal policy in the US: Sustainable after all?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 471-479.
    5. Tilak Abeysinghe & Ananda Jayawickrama, 2013. "A segmented trend model to assess fiscal sustainability: The US experience 1929–2009," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 1129-1141, June.
    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. Hatemi-J, Abdulnasser, 2002. "Fiscal policy in Sweden: effects of EMU criteria convergence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 121-136, January.
    9. 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.
    10. Makrydakis, Stelios & Tzavalis, Elias & Balfoussias, Athanassios, 1998. "Policy regime changes and the long-run sustainability of fiscal policy: an application to Greece," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 71-86, January.
    11. 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).
    12. Ito, Arata & Watanabe, Tsutomu & Yabu, Tomoyoshi, 2011. "Fiscal policy switching in Japan, the US, and the UK," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 380-413.
    13. Arghyrou, Michael G. & Luintel, Kul B., 2007. "Government solvency: Revisiting some EMU countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 29(2), pages 387-410, June.
    14. Park, Danbee & Sung, Taeyoon, 2020. "Foreign debt, global liquidity, and fiscal sustainability," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    15. Juan Carlos Cuestas & Luis A. Gil-Alana & Laura Sauci, 2020. "Public finances in the EU-27: Are they sustainable?," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 181-204, February.
    16. Evan Lau & Ahmad Zubaidi Baharumshah & Soon, 2013. "The behavior of external debt in Asian countries: evidence based on panel unit root tests," Journal of Business Economics and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(sup1), pages 377-394, June.
    17. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/7suq9gqkp186e8d6eou29dipgk is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Bajo-Rubio, Oscar & Díaz-Roldán, Carmen & Esteve, Vicente, 2014. "Deficit sustainability, and monetary versus fiscal dominance: The case of Spain, 1850–2000," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 924-937.
    19. Gabriella Deborah Legrenzi & Costas Milas, 2010. "Spend-and-Tax Adjustments and the Sustainability of the Government's Intertemporal Budget Constraint," CESifo Working Paper Series 2926, CESifo.
    20. John T. Cuddington, 1997. "Analysing the Sustainability of Fiscal Deficits in Developing Countries," International Finance 9706001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    21. Evan Lau & Ahmad Zubaidi Baharumshah, 2005. "Assessing The Mean Reversion Behavior Of Fiscal Policy: The Case Of Asian Countries," Macroeconomics 0504002, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    public debt; sustainability; primary surplus; unit root;
    All these keywords.

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_1446. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.