IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2020-215.html

Mexico Needs a Fiscal Twist: Response to Covid-19 and Beyond

Author

Listed:
  • Mrs. Swarnali A Hannan
  • Ms. Keiko Honjo
  • Mr. Mehdi Raissi

Abstract

Mexico’s fiscal response to the pandemic has been modest compared to its peers, reflecting the authorities’ desire to not issue new debt for spending. This approach, however, risks a more severe recession and a weaker economic recovery, with further costs in the future. Balancing the need for stronger near-term fiscal support for the people and the recovery against medium-term discipline, this paper lays out an alternative strategy. We show that credibly announcing a pro-growth and inclusive medium-term fiscal reform upfront—including increased tax capacity, higher public investment and strengthened social safety nets—would open space for larger short-term support and close medium-term fiscal gaps. Model simulations suggest that this package would boost output, limit lasting economic damage from the pandemic, and put debt trajectory on a declining path in the medium term as tax reforms pay off and risk premia decline.

Suggested Citation

  • Mrs. Swarnali A Hannan & Ms. Keiko Honjo & Mr. Mehdi Raissi, 2020. "Mexico Needs a Fiscal Twist: Response to Covid-19 and Beyond," IMF Working Papers 2020/215, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2020/215
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=49817
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Julie Ann Q. Basconcillo, 2023. "A nexus between fiscal policy and inflation: a case study of Indonesia using SVAR model," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 47(4), pages 477-503.
    2. Juan Alberto Vázquez Muñoz & Nancy Ivonne Muller Durán & Josué Zavaleta González, 2021. "Public Deficits in USMCA Economies During the COVID-19 Economic Crisis," Remef - Revista Mexicana de Economía y Finanzas Nueva Época REMEF (The Mexican Journal of Economics and Finance), Instituto Mexicano de Ejecutivos de Finanzas, IMEF, vol. 16(3), pages 1-21, Julio - S.
    3. Bai, Chenjiang & Duan, Yuejiao & Liu, Congya & Qiu, Leiju, 2022. "International taxation sentiment and COVID-19 crisis," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    4. Espino, Emilio César & Kozlowski, Julian & Martin, Fernando M. & Sánchez, Juan M., 2025. "Policy rules and large crises in emerging markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    5. Buffie, Edward F. & Adam, Christopher & Zanna, Luis-Felipe & Kpodar, Kangni, 2023. "Loss-of-learning and the post-Covid recovery in low-income countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    6. André, Marine C. & Armijo, Alberto & Espidio, Sebastián Medina & Sandoval, Jamel, 2023. "Policy mix in a small open emerging economy with commodity prices," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 4(1).
    7. Osuna Gómez Daniel, 2022. "The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Post-Great Recession Formal Entrants: Evidence from Mexico," Working Papers 2022-19, Banco de México.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
    • E2 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment
    • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
    • O54 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    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:imf:imfwpa:2020/215. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.