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Government Solvency, Austerity and Fiscal Consolidation in the OECD: A Keynesian Appraisal of Transversality and No Ponzi Game Conditions

Abstract

This paper investigates the relevance of the No-Ponzi game condition for public debt (i.e. the public debt growth rates has to be lower than the real interest rate, a necessary assumption for Ricardian equivalence) and of the transversality condition for the GDP growth rate (i.e. the GDP growth rate has to be lower than the real interest rate). First, on the unbalanced panel of 21 countries from 1961 to 2010 available in OECD database, those two conditions were simultaneously validated only for 29% of the cases under examination. Second, those two conditions were more frequent in the 1980s and the 1990s when monetary policies were more restrictive. Third, in tune with the Keynesian view, when the real interest rate is higher than the GDP growth, it corresponds to 75% of the cases of the increases of the debt/GDP ratio but to only 43% of the cases of the decreases of the debt/GDP ratio (fiscal consolidations).

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Paper provided by Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne in its series Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne with number 13042.

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Length: 20 pages
Date of creation: Apr 2013
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:mse:cesdoc:13042
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Keywords: Government solvency; austerity; fiscal consolidation; No-Ponzi game condition; transversality condition; Keynesian countercyclical budgetary policy; monetary policy; economic growth.;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
  • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
  • E6 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
  • H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
  • O4 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity

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  1. Muriel Pucci & Bruno Tinel, 2011. "Réductions d'impôts et dette publique en France," Revue de l'OFCE, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 0(1), pages 125-148.
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  7. Olivier J Blanchard & Daniel Leigh, 2013. "Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers," IMF Working Papers 13/1, International Monetary Fund.
  8. Jean-Bernard Chatelain & Kirsten Ralf, 2012. "The Failure Of Financial Macroeconomics And What To Do About It," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 80, pages 21-53, 09.
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  11. Takashi Kamihigashi, 2004. "Necessity of the Transversality Condition for Stochastic Models with Bounded or CRRA Utility," Discussion Paper Series 152, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University.
  12. Michel, P., 1980. "On the Transversality Condition in Infinite Horizon Optimal Problems," Cahiers de recherche 8024, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
  13. Amable, Bruno & Azizi, Karim, 2011. "Varieties of capitalism and varieties of macroeconomic policy. Are some economies more procyclical than others?," MPIfG Discussion Paper 11/6, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
  14. Jean-Bernard Chatelain, 2010. "Can Statistics Do without Artefacts?," Working Papers hal-00750495, HAL.
  15. Haliassos, Michael & Tobin, James, 1990. "The macroeconomics of government finance," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: B. M. Friedman & F. H. Hahn (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 17, pages 889-959 Elsevier.
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  17. Philip Arestis & Malcolm Sawyer, 2004. "On the Effectiveness of Monetary Policy and of Fiscal Policy," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 62(4), pages 441-463.
  18. repec:hal:journl:halshs-00706777 is not listed on IDEAS
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