IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/226.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Domestic Politics and the International Coordination of Fiscal Policies

Author

Listed:
  • Tabellini, Guido

Abstract

This paper investigates the desirability of international fiscal policy coordination in the presence of a domestic political distortion. The domestic distortion results from the inability of the current policy-maker to enter into a binding agreement with future policy-makers about the composition of public spending. This distortion generates a bias towards budget deficits. International coordination can exacerbate this bias, and thus reduce social welfare at home and abroad. The reason is that international coordination enables the domestic and foreign governments to form a coalition that excludes future policy-makers. This international coalition reduces the cost of running a budget deficit, and thus enhances the adverse effects of the domestic political distortion.

Suggested Citation

  • Tabellini, Guido, 1988. "Domestic Politics and the International Coordination of Fiscal Policies," CEPR Discussion Papers 226, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:226
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=226
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

    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. Buiter,Willem H. & Marston,Richard C., 1986. "International Economic Policy Coordination," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521337809, October.
    2. Tabellini, Guido & Alesina, Alberto, 1990. "Voting on the Budget Deficit," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 37-49, March.
    3. Holmstrom, Bengt & Myerson, Roger B, 1983. "Efficient and Durable Decision Rules with Incomplete Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(6), pages 1799-1819, November.
    4. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1983. "Real Interest Rates, Home Goods, and Optimal External Borrowing," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(1), pages 141-153, February.
    5. Patrick J. Kehoe, 1986. "International policy cooperation may be undesirable," Staff Report 103, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    6. Michael R. Darby & James R. Lothian, 1986. "Economic Events and Keynesian Ideas: The 1930s and the 1970s," NBER Working Papers 1987, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Francesco Giavazzi & Marco Pagano, 1991. "The Advantage of Tying One's Hands: EMS Discipline and Central Bank Credibility," NBER Chapters,in: International Volatility and Economic Growth: The First Ten Years of The International Seminar on Macroeconomics, pages 303-330 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Devereux, Michael, 1987. "Fiscal spending, the terms of trade, and real interest rates," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(3-4), pages 219-235, May.
    9. van der Ploeg, Frederick, 1988. "International policy coordination in interdependent monetary economies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1-2), pages 1-23, August.
    10. J. David Richardson, 1987. "International Coordination of Trade Policy," NBER Working Papers 2293, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Svensson, Lars E O & Razin, Assaf, 1983. "The Terms of Trade and the Current Account: The Harberger-Laursen-Metzler Effect," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(1), pages 97-125, February.
    12. Cukierman, Alex & Meltzer, Allan H, 1986. "A Positive Theory of Discretionary Policy, the Cost of Democratic Government and the Benefits of a Constitution," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 24(3), pages 367-388, July.
    13. Roland VAUBEL, 1985. "International Collusion or Competition for Macroeconomic Policy Coordination? A Restatement," Discussion Papers (REL - Recherches Economiques de Louvain) 1985031, Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de Recherches Economiques et Sociales (IRES).
    14. Rogoff, Kenneth, 1990. "Equilibrium Political Budget Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 21-36, 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. Conconi, Paola & Sahuguet, Nicolas, 2009. "Policymakers' horizon and the sustainability of international cooperation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(3-4), pages 549-558, April.
    2. Shin-Ichi Fukuda, 1992. "Why Does A Two-Party System Exist?: A New Economic Explanation," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4(3), pages 277-288, November.
    3. Carmen Díaz-Roldán, "undated". "Coordination of Fiscal Policies in a Monetary Union," Working Papers on International Economics and Finance 00-09, FEDEA.
    4. Joseph Daniels & David VanHoose, 1998. "Two-Country Models of Monetary and Fiscal Policy: What Have We Learned? What More Can We Learn?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 9(3), pages 265-284, July.
    5. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 2016. "International Coordination," NBER Working Papers 21878, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Yiyong Cai & Warwick McKibbin, 2015. "Uncertainty and International Climate Change Negotiations," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 1(1), pages 101-115, March.
    7. Jay Bryson & Henrik Jensen & David Hoose, 1993. "Rules, discretion, and international monetary and fiscal policy coordination," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 117-132, June.
    8. Jaewoo Lee & Michelle R. Garfinkel, 2000. "Political Influence and the Dynamic Consistency of Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 649-666, June.
    9. Rui Alves & Oscar Afonso, 2007. "The "New" Stability and Growth Pact: More Flexible, Less Stupid?," Intereconomics: Review of European Economic Policy, Springer;German National Library of Economics;Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), vol. 42(4), pages 218-225, July.
    10. Willem H. Buiter & Anne C. Sibert, 2003. "Cross-Border Tax Externalities: Are Budget Deficits too Small?," Levine's Bibliography 666156000000000430, UCLA Department of Economics.
    11. Guido Tabellini, 2003. "Principles of Policymaking in the European Union: An Economic Perspective," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo, vol. 49(1), pages 75-102.
    12. Banerjee, Gaurango, 2001. "Rules and discretion with common central bank and separate fiscal authorities," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 45-68.
    13. Laurence H. Meyer & Brian M. Doyle & Joseph E. Gagnon & Dale W. Henderson, 2002. "International coordination of macroeconomic policies: still alive in the new millennium?," International Finance Discussion Papers 723, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Real Arai & Katsuyuki Naito & Tetsuo Ono, 2018. "Intergenerational policies, public debt, and economic growth: a politico{economic analysis," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 18-12, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics and Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP).
    15. Rui Henrique Alves & Oscar Afonso, 2008. "Evaluating the reform of the stability and growth pact: new and better?," EKONOMIAZ. Revista vasca de Economía, Gobierno Vasco / Eusko Jaurlaritza / Basque Government, vol. 67(01), pages 392-409.
    16. Buiter, Willem H. & Sibert, Anne C., 2016. "Government deficits in large open economies: The problem of too little public debt," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), vol. 10, pages 1-39.
    17. Loeper, Antoine, 2017. "Cross-border externalities and cooperation among representative democracies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 180-208.
    18. John William Hatfield & Gerard Padró i Miquel, 2008. "A Political Economy Theory of Partial Decentralization," NBER Working Papers 14628, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Jon Faust, 1992. "Whom can we trust to run the Fed? Theoretical support for the founders' views," International Finance Discussion Papers 429, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).

    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:cpr:ceprdp:226. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (). General contact details of provider: .

    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 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.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.