IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v110y2020i3p860-88.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fiscal Rules, Bailouts, and Reputation in Federal Governments

Author

Listed:
  • Alessandro Dovis
  • Rishabh Kirpalani

Abstract

Expectations of transfers by central governments incentivize overborrowing by local governments. In this paper, we ask if fiscal rules can reduce overborrowing if central governments cannot commit to enforce penalties when rules are violated. We study a model in which the central government's type is unknown and show that fiscal rules increase overborrowing if the central government's reputation is low. In contrast, fiscal rules are effective in lowering debt if the central government's reputation is high. Even when the central government's reputation is low, binding fiscal rules will arise in the equilibrium of a signaling game.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessandro Dovis & Rishabh Kirpalani, 2020. "Fiscal Rules, Bailouts, and Reputation in Federal Governments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(3), pages 860-888, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:110:y:2020:i:3:p:860-88
    DOI: 10.1257/aer.20181432
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20181432
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://doi.org/10.3886/E111668V1
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20181432.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/aer.20181432.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/aer.20181432?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Miloš Krstić & José António Filipe & José Chavaglia, 2020. "Higher Education as a Determinant of the Competitiveness and Sustainable Development of an Economy," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(16), pages 1-22, August.
    2. Sean Dougherty & Pietrangelo Biase, 2021. "Who absorbs the shock? An analysis of the fiscal impact of the COVID-19 crisis on different levels of government," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 517-540, July.
    3. Arawatari, Ryo & Ono, Tetsuo, 2021. "Public debt rule breaking by time-inconsistent voters," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    4. Uchida, Yuki & Ono, Tetsuo, 2021. "Borrowing to finance public investment: a politico-economic analysis of fiscal rules," MPRA Paper 115844, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 31 Dec 2022.
    5. Chistoph Grosse-Steffen & Laura Pagenhardt & Malte Rieth, 2021. "Committed to Flexible Fiscal Rules," Working papers 854, Banque de France.
    6. Xiaodong Chen & Haoming Mi & Peng Zhou, 2024. "Whether to decentralize and how to decentralize? The optimal fiscal federalism in an endogenous growth model," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 56(29), pages 3499-3516, June.
    7. Zhang, Jinjin & Liu, Jin & Zhou, Gang & Pan, Di & Liao, Fang-nan, 2024. "Has inspection supervision effectively reduced the risk of local government debt? Evidence from China," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    8. Bulent Guler & Yasin Kürsat Önder & Temel Taskin, 2024. "Sovereign Debt Disclosure," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 24/1094, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
    9. RYO ARAWATARI & Tetsuo Ono, 2024. "Optimal Fiscal Spending and Deviation Rules under Political Uncertainty," Discussion Papers in Economics and Business 24-03, Osaka University, Graduate School of Economics.
    10. Díaz-Roldán Carmen & Filho Fernando Ferrari & da Silva Bichara Julimar, 2021. "Fiscal Rules in Economic Crisis: The Trade-off Between Consolidation and Recovery, from a European Perspective," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 199-216, January.
    11. Liu, Yan & Wu, Guowei & Xiong, Chen, 2024. "Countercyclical central government transfers incentivize local government overborrowing: Theory and evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    12. Niklas Potrafke, 2023. "The Economic Consequences of Fiscal Rules," CESifo Working Paper Series 10765, CESifo.
    13. Ilzetzki, Ethan & Thysen, Heidi, 2024. "Fiscal rules and market discipline," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 125402, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Marina Halac & Pierre Yared, 2022. "Fiscal Rules and Discretion Under Limited Enforcement," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(5), pages 2093-2127, September.
    15. Maideu-Morera, Gerard, 2024. "Optimal Fiscal Rules and Macroprudential Policies with Sovereign Default Risk," TSE Working Papers 24-1534, Toulouse School of Economics (TSE).
    16. Fernando González & Diego Martínez-López, 2021. "El diseño de reglas fiscales en gobiernos subcentrales. El caso de España," Policy Papers 2021-01, FEDEA.
    17. del Castillo, Ernesto & Cabral, René, 2024. "Subnational public debt sustainability in Mexico: Is the new fiscal rule working?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    18. Ryo Arawatari & Tetsuo Ono, 2023. "International coordination of debt rules with time‐inconsistent voters," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(1), pages 29-60, February.
    19. Mark Gradstein, 2022. "Government Bailout Funds: Balancing Rules and Discretion," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 54(1), pages 333-342, February.
    20. Bulent Guler & Yasin Kursat Onder & Temel Taskin, 2022. "Asymmetric Information and Sovereign Debt Disclosure," CAEPR Working Papers 2022-004 Classification-E, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.
    21. Mitchener, Kris & Trebesch, Christoph, 2021. "Sovereign Debt in the 21st Century: Looking Backward, Looking Forward," CEPR Discussion Papers 15935, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    22. Kobielarz, M.L., 2023. "Bailout dynamics in a monetary union," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).

    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
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism
    • H81 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Governmental Loans; Loan Guarantees; Credits; Grants; Bailouts

    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:aea:aecrev:v:110:y:2020:i:3:p:860-88. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.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.