IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this paper

Human Development and Fiscal Policy: Comparing the Crises of 1982-85 and 2008-11

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Bruno Martorano,

    ()

    (Unicef-IRC)

  • Giovanni Andrea Cornia

    ()

    (Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Università degli studi di Firenze)

  • Frances Stewart

    (Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford)

Abstract

The paper juxtaposes the fiscal policies – and in particular the changes in social expenditures – adopted during the debt crisis of 1982-1985 and the financial crisis of 2008-2011. The paper shows that – contrary to the early 1980s - the governments’ responses in 2008-2009 were characterized by the adoption of Keynesian fiscal stimulus packages in which an increase in social spending represented one of the main components. Nonetheless, in 2010-11 fear of debt default and continuous pressures coming from the financial markets pushed many policy makers to introduce austerity packages and cut public social expenditure, offsetting in this way part the prior policy decisions, as already observed in the early 1980s. Econometric evidence included in the paper shows that the factors explaining the difference in policy approaches between the early 1980s and 2008-2009 include greater country autonomy compared with the past, the spread of democracy and the greater attention paid to human development by policy-makers designing fiscal adjustments.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.disei.unifi.it/upload/sub/pubblicazioni/repec/pdf/wp23_2012.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Paper provided by Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa in its series Working Papers - Economics with number wp2012_23.rdf.

as
in new window

Length: 33 pages
Date of creation: 2012
Handle: RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2012_23.rdf
Contact details of provider: Postal:
Via delle Pandette 9 50127 - Firenze - Italy

Phone: +39 055 2759582
Fax: +39-055-2759550
Web page: http://www.disei.unifi.it/
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Keywords: financial crises; fiscal adjustment; public social expenditure; human development.;

Find related papers by JEL classification:

  • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy
  • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
  • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. William Easterly, 1999. "When is fiscal adjustment an illusion?," Economic Policy, CEPR;CES;MSH, vol. 14(28), pages 55-86, 04.
  2. Giovanni Andrea Cornia & Bruno Martorano, 2012. "Development Policies and Income Inequality in Selected Developing Regions, 1980–2010," UNCTAD Discussion Papers 210, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
  3. Lora, Eduardo & Olivera, Mauricio, 2007. "Public debt and social expenditure: Friends or foes?," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 299-310, December.
  4. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2011. "From Financial Crash to Debt Crisis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1676-1706, August.
  5. Weaver, R. Kent, 1986. "The Politics of Blame Avoidance," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(04), pages 371-398, October.
  6. Cornia, Giovanni Andrea & Martorano, Bruno, 2011. "A New Fiscal Pact, Tax Policy Changes and Income Inequality," WIDER Working Paper Series 070, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
  7. Frances Stewart, 2012. "The Impact of Global Economic Crises on the Poor: Comparing the 1980s and 2000s," Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 83-105, February.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. Bruno Martorano, 2014. "The Consequences of the Recent Economic Crisis and Government Reactions for Children," Papers inwopa722, Innocenti Working Papers.
  2. Bruno Martorano, 2015. "Lessons from the recent economic crisis: the Australian household stimulus package," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 309-327, May.
  3. Bruno Martorano, 2014. "Pre-crisis Conditions and Government Policy Responses: Chile and Mexico during the Great Recession," Papers inwopa729, Innocenti Working Papers.
  4. Bruno Martorano & Luisa Natali & Chris De Neubourg & Jonathan Bradshaw, 2013. "Child Well-being in Economically Rich Countries: Changes in the first decade of the 21st century," Papers inwopa685, Innocenti Working Papers.
  5. Bruno Martorano, 2013. "The Australian Household Stimulus Package: Lessons from the recent economic crisis," Papers inwopa697, Innocenti Working Papers.
  6. Bruno Martorano, 2014. "Is it possible to adjust ‘with a human face’? Differences in fiscal consolidation strategies between Hungary and Iceland," Papers inwopa719, Innocenti Working Papers.
  7. Giovanni Andrea Cornia, 2012. "The New Structuralist Macroeconomics and Income Inequality," Working Papers - Economics wp2012_25.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2012_23.rdf. 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: (Giorgio Ricchiuti)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 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.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.