A Modern History of Fiscal Prudence and Profligacy

WP/13/5

We draw on a newly collected historical dataset of fiscal variables for a large panel of countries—to our knowledge, the most comprehensive database currently available—to gauge the degree of fiscal prudence or profligacy for each country over the past several decades. Specifically, our dataset consists of fiscal revenues, primary expenditures, the interest bill (and thus both the primary and the overall fiscal deficit), the government debt, and gross domestic product, for 55 countries for up to two hundred years. For the first time, a large cross country historical data set covers both fiscal stocks and flows. Using Bohn's (1998) approach and other tests for fiscal sustainability, we document how the degree of prudence or profligacy varies significantly over time within individual countries. We find that such variation is driven in part by unexpected changes in potential economic growth and sovereign borrowing costs.
Publication date: January 2013
ISBN: 9781616357825
$18.00
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Topics covered in this book

This title contains information about the following subjects. Click on a subject if you would like to see other titles with the same subjects.

Economics- Macroeconomics , Economics / General , International - Economics , Fiscal policy , public debt , budget deficits , economic growth , debt sustainability

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