[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_4716.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fiscal Transfers and Fiscal Sustainability

Author

Listed:
  • Niklas Potrafke
  • Markus Reischmann
Abstract
We examine whether US and German state governments pursue sustainable fiscal policies taking into account fiscal transfers. Using panel data techniques we investigate whether the debt-to-GDP ratio had a positive influence on the primary surplus (Bohn-model). We show that including/excluding fiscal transfers changes the results. If fiscal transfers are not included in the primary surplus, the test results do not indicate that the US and German state governments pursued sustainable fiscal policies. Our results also suggest that fiscal transfers were positively related with debt. These findings indicate that intergovernmental transfers have implicitly subsidized debts.

Suggested Citation

  • Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2014. "Fiscal Transfers and Fiscal Sustainability," CESifo Working Paper Series 4716, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_4716
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp4716.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Poterba, James M, 1996. "Budget Institutions and Fiscal Policy in the U.S. States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 395-400, May.
    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. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    4. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2008. "Heteroskedasticity-Robust Standard Errors for Fixed Effects Panel Data Regression," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(1), pages 155-174, January.
    5. Helmut Herwartz & Fang Xu, 2008. "Reviewing The Sustainability/Stationarity Of Current Account Imbalances With Tests For Bounded Integration," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 76(3), pages 267-278, June.
    6. 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.
    7. Werner Heun, 2014. "Balanced Budget Requirements and Debt Brakes Feasibility and Enforcement," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 15(1), pages 100-115, February.
    8. Xavier Sala-i-Martin & Jeffrey Sachs, 1991. "Fiscal Federalism and Optimum Currency Areas: Evidence for Europe From the United States," NBER Working Papers 3855, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    10. Sorensen, Bent E. & Wu, Lisa & Yosha, Oved, 2001. "Output fluctuations and fiscal policy: U.S. state and local governments 1978-1994," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1271-1310.
    11. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Ostry, Jonathan D., 2008. "International evidence on fiscal solvency: Is fiscal policy "responsible"?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 1081-1093, September.
    12. repec:bla:scandj:v:88:y:1986:i:1:p:195-22 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Beetsma, Roel M W J & Bovenberg, A Lans, 2001. "The Optimality of a Monetary Union without a Fiscal Union," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 33(2), pages 179-204, May.
    14. Atish R. Ghosh & Jun I. Kim & Enrique G. Mendoza & Jonathan D. Ostry & Mahvash S. Qureshi, 2013. "Fiscal Fatigue, Fiscal Space and Debt Sustainability in Advanced Economies," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 4-30, February.
    15. 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.
    16. Burret Heiko T. & Feld Lars P. & Köhler Ekkehard A., 2013. "Sustainability of Public Debt in Germany – Historical Considerations and Time Series Evidence," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 233(3), pages 291-335, June.
    17. Henning Bohn, 1998. "The Behavior of U. S. Public Debt and Deficits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 949-963.
    18. White, Halbert, 1980. "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(4), pages 817-838, May.
    19. Valentino Larcinese & Leonzio Rizzo & Cecilia Testa, 2013. "Why Do Small States Receive More Federal Money? U.S. Senate Representation and the Allocation of Federal Budget," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 257-282, November.
    20. Byrne, Joseph P. & Fiess, Norbert & MacDonald, Ronald, 2011. "The global dimension to fiscal sustainability," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 137-150, June.
    21. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    22. Christian Baretti & Bernd Huber & Karl Lichtblau, 2002. "A Tax on Tax Revenue: The Incentive Effects of Equalizing Transfers: Evidence from Germany," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 9(6), pages 631-649, November.
    23. Peter Claeys & Raúl Ramos & Jordi Suriñach, 2008. "Fiscal sustainability across government tiers," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 139-163, July.
    24. Olivier J. Blanchard, 1991. "Current and Anticipated Deficits, Interest Rates and Economic Activity," NBER Chapters, in: International Volatility and Economic Growth: The First Ten Years of The International Seminar on Macroeconomics, pages 361-390, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    26. Valentino Larcinese & Leonzio Rizzo & Cecilia Testa, 2013. "Why Do Small States Receive More Federal Money? U.S. Senate Representation and the Allocation of Federal Budget," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(3), pages 257-282, November.
    27. Checherita-Westphal, Cristina & Rother, Philipp, 2012. "The impact of high government debt on economic growth and its channels: An empirical investigation for the euro area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(7), pages 1392-1405.
    28. Cavaliere, Giuseppe & Xu, Fang, 2014. "Testing for unit roots in bounded time series," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 178(P2), pages 259-272.
    29. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    30. Bohn, Henning, 1995. "The Sustainability of Budget Deficits in a Stochastic Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 257-271, February.
    31. Gerrit B. Koester & Christoph Priesmeier, 2013. "Does Wagner´s Law Ruin the Sustainability of German Public Finances?," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 69(3), pages 256-288, September.
    32. Michael D. Bordo & Lars Jonung & Agnieszka Markiewicz, 2013. "A Fiscal Union for the Euro: Some Lessons from History ," CESifo Economic Studies, CESifo Group, vol. 59(3), pages 449-488, September.
    33. Poterba, James M, 1994. "State Responses to Fiscal Crises: The Effects of Budgetary Institutions and Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 799-821, August.
    34. Silika Prohl & Joakim Westerlund, 2009. "Using Panel Data to Test for Fiscal Sustainability within the European Union," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 65(2), pages 246-269, June.
    35. Bettina Fincke & Alfred Greiner, 2012. "How to assess debt sustainability? Some theory and empirical evidence for selected euro area countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(28), pages 3717-3724, October.
    36. Bohn, Henning & Inman, Robert P., 1996. "Balanced-budget rules and public deficits: evidence from the U.S. states," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 13-76, December.
    37. Samuel Bazzi & Michael A. Clemens, 2013. "Blunt Instruments: Avoiding Common Pitfalls in Identifying the Causes of Economic Growth," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 152-186, April.
    38. Heun Werner, 2014. "Balanced Budget Requirements and Debt Brakes Feasibility and Enforcement," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 100-115, February.
    39. 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.
    40. Quintos, Carmela E, 1995. "Sustainability of the Deficit Process with Structural Shifts," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(4), pages 409-417, October.
    41. David Roodman, 2009. "A Note on the Theme of Too Many Instruments," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 71(1), pages 135-158, February.
    42. David Roodman, 2006. "How to Do xtabond2," North American Stata Users' Group Meetings 2006 8, Stata Users Group.
    43. 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.
    44. 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.
    45. Baretti, Christian & Huber, Bernd & Lichtblau, Karl, 2002. "A Tax on Tax Revenue: The Incentive Effects of Equalizing Transfers: Evidence from Germany," Munich Reprints in Economics 20129, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    46. Bettina Fincke & Alfred Greiner, 2011. "Debt sustainability in Germany: empirical evidence for federal states," International Journal of Sustainable Economy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 3(2), pages 235-254.
    47. James M. Poterba & Jürgen von Hagen, 1999. "Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number pote99-1.
    48. Windmeijer, Frank, 2005. "A finite sample correction for the variance of linear efficient two-step GMM estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 126(1), pages 25-51, May.
    49. Helmut Herwartz & Bernd Theilen, 2014. "On the political and fiscal determinants of income redistribution under federalism and democracy: evidence from Germany," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 121-139, April.
    50. Mahdavi, Saeid & Westerlund, Joakim, 2011. "Fiscal stringency and fiscal sustainability: Panel evidence from the American state and local governments," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 953-969.
    51. White, Halbert, 1982. "Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Misspecified Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 1-25, January.
    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. 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.
    2. Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2012. "Fiscal Equalization Schemes and Fiscal Sustainability," ifo Working Paper Series 141, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    3. TINA M. Saeid Mahdavi, 2012. "Bohn’s Test of Fiscal Sustainability of the American State Governments The dramatic fall in state government revenues during the “Great Recession” and the resultant large budget deficits accentuated c," Working Papers 0030, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    4. Maria Cornachione Kula, 2019. "The behavior of U.S. States’ debts and deficits," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 43(3), pages 267-289.
    5. Paniagua, Jordi & Sapena, Juan & Tamarit, Cecilio, 2017. "Fiscal sustainability in EMU countries: A continued fiscal commitment?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 85-97.
    6. Beqiraj, Elton & Fedeli, Silvia & Forte, Francesco, 2018. "Public debt sustainability: An empirical study on OECD countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 238-248.
    7. Gabriel Temesgen Woldu & Izabella Szakálné Kanó, 2024. "Primary surplus dynamics and fiscal sustainability in sub-saharan African countries," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 41(2), pages 499-519, July.
    8. Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2014. "Fiskalische Nachhaltigkeit und Transferzahlungen," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 67(07), pages 17-22, April.
    9. Byrne, Joseph P. & Fiess, Norbert & MacDonald, Ronald, 2011. "The global dimension to fiscal sustainability," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 137-150, June.
    10. María del Carmen Ramos-Herrera & Simón Sosvilla-Rivero, 2020. "Fiscal Sustainability in Aging Societies: Evidence from Euro Area Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(24), pages 1-20, December.
    11. Helmut Herwartz & Malte Rengel, 2018. "Size-corrected inference in fiscal policy reaction functions: a three country assessment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 391-416, September.
    12. María del Carmen Ramos-Herrera & María A. Prats, 2020. "Fiscal Sustainability in the European Countries: A Panel ARDL Approach and a Dynamic Panel Threshold Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-14, October.
    13. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    14. 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).
    15. António Afonso & João Tovar Jalles, 2012. "Revisiting fiscal sustainability: panel cointegration and structural breaks in OECD countries," Working Papers Department of Economics 2012/29, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    16. Aldama, Pierre & Creel, Jérôme, 2019. "Fiscal policy in the US: Sustainable after all?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 471-479.
    17. Park, Danbee & Sung, Taeyoon, 2020. "Foreign debt, global liquidity, and fiscal sustainability," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    18. K. R. Shanmugam & P.S. Renjith, 2023. "Sustainability and Threshold Value of Public Debt of Centre and All State Governments in India," Working Papers 2023-240, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    19. Vlaicu, Razvan & Verhoeven, Marijn & Grigoli, Francesco & Mills, Zachary, 2014. "Multiyear budgets and fiscal performance: Panel data evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 79-95.
    20. Michał Mackiewicz, 2021. "The sustainability of fiscal policy in southern African countries–a comparative empirical perspective," International Journal of Emerging Markets, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 18(2), pages 337-350, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fiscal sustainability; public debt; institutions; fiscal transfers; panel data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H74 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Borrowing
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

    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:_4716. 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.