IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-14-00829.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Does pro-cyclical fiscal policy lead to more income inequality? An empirical analysis for sub-saharan Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Rasmane Ouedraogo

    (University of Auvergne, Centre d''Etudes et de Recherches sur le Développement International (CERDI))

Abstract

Despite progress in some cases, many Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries are not currently on track to achieve their Millennium Development Goals, particularly those related to poverty and income inequality. This situation is associated to procyclical fiscal policy highlighted in previous literature. This paper examines whether procyclical fiscal policy leads to more income inequality and therefore employs panel data techniques with heterogeneous slope (Mean Group model) covering 30 Sub-Saharan Africa countries over the period from 1985 to 2012. Our results confirm that, not only pro-cyclical fiscal policy is the norm in SSA economies, but also the effect of pro-cyclical fiscal policy on income inequality depends on the type of expenses: pro-cyclical public investment leads to more income inequality, contrary to pro-cyclical government consumption expenditures.

Suggested Citation

  • Rasmane Ouedraogo, 2015. "Does pro-cyclical fiscal policy lead to more income inequality? An empirical analysis for sub-saharan Africa," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(2), pages 1306-1317.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-14-00829
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2015/Volume35/EB-15-V35-I2-P132.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Philippe Aghion & Ioana Marinescu, 2008. "Cyclical Budgetary Policy and Economic Growth: What Do We Learn from OECD Panel Data?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2007, Volume 22, pages 251-278, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Morten O. Ravn & Harald Uhlig, 2002. "On adjusting the Hodrick-Prescott filter for the frequency of observations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 371-375.
    3. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Vegh, Carlos A. & Vuletin, Guillermo, 2013. "On graduation from fiscal procyclicality," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(1), pages 32-47.
    4. Mr. Gaston K Mpatswe & Mr. Sampawende J Tapsoba & Mr. Robert C York, 2011. "The Cyclicality of Fiscal Policies in the CEMAC Region," IMF Working Papers 2011/205, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Pesaran, M. Hashem & Smith, Ron, 1995. "Estimating long-run relationships from dynamic heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 79-113, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Vanesa Jorda & Jose M. Alonso, 2020. "What works to mitigate and reduce relative (and absolute) inequality?: A systematic review," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2020-152, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).

    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. Guerguil, Martine & Mandon, Pierre & Tapsoba, René, 2017. "Flexible fiscal rules and countercyclical fiscal policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 189-220.
    2. Jean-Louis COMBES & Rasmané OUEDRAOGO, 2014. "Does Pro-cyclical Aid Lead to Pro-cyclical Fiscal Policy? An Empirical Analysis for Sub-Saharan Africa," Working Papers 201424, CERDI.
    3. Ouedraogo, Rasmane & Sourouema, Windemanegda Sandrine, 2018. "Fiscal policy pro-cyclicality in Sub-Saharan African countries: The role of export concentration," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 219-229.
    4. Combes, Jean-Louis & Minea, Alexandru & Sow, Moussé, 2017. "Is fiscal policy always counter- (pro-) cyclical? The role of public debt and fiscal rules," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 138-146.
    5. Pierre Mandon, 2014. "Evaluating Treatment Effect and Causal Effect of Fiscal Rules on Procyclicality New assessments on old debate: rules vs. discretion," CERDI Working papers halshs-01015756, HAL.
    6. Pierre Mandon, 2014. "Evaluating Treatment Effect and Causal Effect of Fiscal Rules on Procyclicality New assessments on old debate: rules vs. discretion," Working Papers halshs-01015760, HAL.
    7. Kady Keita & Camelia Turcu, 2023. "Promoting Counter-Cyclical Fiscal Policy: Fiscal Rules Versus Institutions," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(4), pages 736-781, December.
    8. Jing Xing & Clemens Fuest, 2018. "Central-local government fiscal relations and cyclicality of public spending: evidence from China," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(4), pages 946-980, August.
    9. Pierre Mandon, 2014. "Evaluating Treatment Effect and Causal Effect of Fiscal Rules on Procyclicality New assessments on old debate: rules vs. discretion," CERDI Working papers halshs-01015760, HAL.
    10. João T. Jalles, 2020. "Explaining Africa's public consumption procyclicality: Revisiting old evidence," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(2), pages 297-323, August.
    11. Carneiro,Francisco Galrao & Garrido,Leonardo, 2015. "New evidence on the cyclicality of fiscal policy," Policy Research Working Paper Series 7293, The World Bank.
    12. Aizenman, Joshua & Jinjarak, Yothin & Nguyen, Hien Thi Kim & Park, Donghyun, 2019. "Fiscal space and government-spending and tax-rate cyclicality patterns: A cross-country comparison, 1960–2016," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 229-252.
    13. Pierre Mandon, 2014. "Evaluating Treatment Effect and Causal Effect of Fiscal Rules on Procyclicality," Working Papers hal-01015439, HAL.
    14. Pierre MANDON, 2014. "Evaluating Treatment Effect and Causal Effect of Fiscal Rules on Procyclicality New assessments on old debate: rules vs. discretion," Working Papers 201414, CERDI.
    15. Pierre Mandon, 2014. "Evaluating Treatment Effect and Causal Effect of Fiscal Rules on Procyclicality New assessments on old debate: rules vs. discretion," Working Papers halshs-01015756, HAL.
    16. Sangyup Choi & Davide Furceri & João Tovar Jalles, 2022. "Heterogeneous gains from countercyclical fiscal policy: new evidence from international industry-level data [Optimal investment with costly reversibility]," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 773-804.
    17. Ms. Juliana Dutra Araujo & Mr. Antonio David & Carlos van Hombeeck & Mr. Chris Papageorgiou, 2015. "Joining the Club? Procyclicality of Private Capital Inflows in Low Income Developing Countries," IMF Working Papers 2015/163, International Monetary Fund.
    18. Bauducco, Sofia & Caprioli, Francesco, 2014. "Optimal fiscal policy in a small open economy with limited commitment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(2), pages 302-315.
    19. Hongsheng Fang & Wen‐Quan Hu & Ruhua Shi & Xufei Zhang, 2023. "The Chinese‐style macroeconomic control: The role of state‐owned enterprises," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 46(3), pages 702-725, March.
    20. Richard McManus & F. Gulcin Ozkan, 2015. "On the Consequences of Pro‐Cyclical Fiscal Policy," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 36, pages 29-50, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Pro-cyclicality; fiscal policy; income inequality; Sub-Saharan African countries;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty

    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:ebl:ecbull:eb-14-00829. 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: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.