[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/17305.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Japanese Government Debt and Sustainability of Fiscal Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Takero Doi
  • Takeo Hoshi
  • Tatsuyoshi Okimoto
Abstract
We construct quarterly series of the revenues, expenditures, and debt outstanding for Japan from 1980 to 2010, and analyze the sustainability of the fiscal policy. We pursue three approaches to examine the sustainability. First, we calculate the minimum tax rate that stabilizes the debt to GDP ratio given the future government expenditures. Using 2010 as the base year, we find that the government revenue to GDP ratio must rise permanently to 40%-47% (from the current 33%) to stabilize the debt to GDP ratio. Second, we estimate the response of the primary surplus when the debt to GDP ratio increases. We allow the relationship to fluctuate between two "regimes" using a Markov switching model. In both regimes, the primary surplus to GDP ratio fails to respond positively to debt, which suggests the process is explosive. Finally, we estimate a fiscal policy function and a monetary policy function with Markov switching. We find that the fiscal policy is "active" (the tax revenues do not rise when the debt increases) and the monetary policy is "passive" (the interest rate does not react to the inflation rate sufficiently) in both regimes. These results suggest that the current fiscal situation for the Japanese government is not sustainable.

Suggested Citation

  • Takero Doi & Takeo Hoshi & Tatsuyoshi Okimoto, 2011. "Japanese Government Debt and Sustainability of Fiscal Policy," NBER Working Papers 17305, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17305
    Note: CF ME PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17305.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Davig, Troy & Leeper, Eric M., 2011. "Monetary-fiscal policy interactions and fiscal stimulus," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 211-227, February.
    3. Hodrick, Robert J & Prescott, Edward C, 1997. "Postwar U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, February.
    4. Leeper, Eric M., 1991. "Equilibria under 'active' and 'passive' monetary and fiscal policies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 129-147, February.
    5. Doi, Takero & Hoshi, Takeo & Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi, 2011. "Japanese government debt and sustainability of fiscal policy," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 414-433.
    6. repec:bla:scandj:v:88:y:1986:i:1:p:195-22 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Smith, Aaron & Naik, Prasad A. & Tsai, Chih-Ling, 2006. "Markov-switching model selection using Kullback-Leibler divergence," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 134(2), pages 553-577, October.
    8. Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Fluctuating Macro Policies and the Fiscal Theory," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2006, Volume 21, pages 247-316, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Ito, Arata & Watanabe, Tsutomu & Yabu, Tomoyoshi, 2011. "Fiscal policy switching in Japan, the US, and the UK," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 380-413.
    10. Takero Doi & Toshihiro Ihori, 2009. "The Public Sector in Japan," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12752.
    11. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "State-Space Models with Regime Switching: Classical and Gibbs-Sampling Approaches with Applications," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262112388, April.
    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. Cevik, Emrah Ismail & Dibooglu, Sel & Kutan, Ali M., 2014. "Monetary and fiscal policy interactions: Evidence from emerging European economies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 1079-1091.
    2. António AFONSO & Priscilla TOFFANO, 2013. "Fiscal regimes in the EU," Working Papers of Department of Economics, Leuven ces13.06, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Department of Economics, Leuven.
    3. Ricci-Risquete, Alejandro & Ramajo, Julián & de Castro, Francisco, 2016. "Do Spanish fiscal regimes follow the euro-area trends? Evidence from Markov-Switching fiscal rules," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 484-494.
    4. Canzoneri, Matthew & Cumby, Robert & Diba, Behzad & López-Salido, David, 2011. "The role of liquid government bonds in the great transformation of American monetary policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 282-294, March.
    5. Khalid, Norlin & Marwan, Nur Fakhzan, 2013. "The Effect of Regime Switching Policy Rules on Economic Growth," Jurnal Ekonomi Malaysia, Faculty of Economics and Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, vol. 47(2), pages 93-109.
    6. Hiroyuki Kasahara & Tatsuyoshi Okimoto & Katsumi Shimotsu, 2014. "Modified Quasi-Likelihood Ratio Test for Regime Switching," The Japanese Economic Review, Japanese Economic Association, vol. 65(1), pages 25-41, March.
    7. Ko, Jun-Hyung & Morita, Hiroshi, 2015. "Fiscal sustainability and regime shifts in Japan," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 364-375.
    8. Gulcin Guresci PEHLIVAN & Esra BALLI, 2016. "Testing the Existence of Ricardian or Non-Ricardian Regimes for CIS Countries," Expert Journal of Economics, Sprint Investify, vol. 4(1), pages 9-13.
    9. Truong Nguyen, 2013. "Estimating India's Fiscal Reaction Function," ASARC Working Papers 2013-05, The Australian National University, Australia South Asia Research Centre.
    10. Kriwoluzky, Alexander & Müller, Gernot J. & Wolf, Martin, 2019. "Exit expectations and debt crises in currency unions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C).
    11. Ito, Arata & Watanabe, Tsutomu & Yabu, Tomoyoshi, 2011. "Fiscal policy switching in Japan, the US, and the UK," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 380-413.
    12. Sanchit Arora, 2018. "Regime-switching monetary and fiscal policy rules and their interaction: an Indian case study," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(4), pages 1573-1607, June.
    13. Perevyshin, Yuri (Перевышин, Юрий), 2017. "Peculiarities of Interaction of Monetary and Fiscal Policy Under the Inflation Targeting Regime [Особенности Взаимодействия Денежно-Кредитной И Фискальной Политики При Режиме Инфляционного Таргетир," Working Papers 031711, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    14. Chuku Chuku & Paul Middleditch, 2020. "Characterizing Monetary and Fiscal Policy Rules and Interactions when Commodity Prices Matter," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(3), pages 373-404, June.
    15. Wolf, Martin & Müller, Gernot & Kriwoluzky, Alexander, 2013. "Currency Risk in Currency Unions," CEPR Discussion Papers 9635, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Leeper, Eric M. & Plante, Michael & Traum, Nora, 2010. "Dynamics of fiscal financing in the United States," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 156(2), pages 304-321, June.
    17. Eric M. Leeper, 2010. "Monetary science, fiscal alchemy," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 361-434.
    18. 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.
    19. Eric M. Leeper, 2009. "Anchoring fiscal expectations," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Bulletin, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, vol. 72, pages 17-42, September.
    20. Checherita-Westphal, Cristina & Žďárek, Václav, 2017. "Fiscal reaction function and fiscal fatigue: evidence for the euro area," Working Paper Series 2036, European Central Bank.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

    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:nbr:nberwo:17305. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.