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Discretionary fiscal policy and disagreement in expectations about fiscal variables empirical evidence from Brazil

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  • Montes, Gabriel Caldas
  • Luna, Paulo Henrique

Abstract

The present paper provides evidence in support of the hypothesis that the use of discretionary fiscal policy creates disagreements in expectations about both public debt and budget balance. The analysis considers the Brazilian case. Brazil is an interesting case study once it presents serious problems of public accounts deterioration, and in addition it had the president of the republic removed from its position since she was condemned on the charge of having committed crimes of fiscal responsibility. The estimates are made through ordinary least squares, one-step generalized method of moments and two-step generalized method of moments. In order to give robustness to the results, the study also provides estimates through an autoregressive distributed lag modeling approach (ARDL). Besides, in order to dynamically analyze the relationships between discretionary fiscal policy and disagreements in expectations about fiscal variables, we present an impulse response analysis based on vector autoregressive (VAR) estimates. The results indicate that the adoption of discretionary fiscal policies increases the disagreement in expectations about fiscal variables, and thus creates uncertainties about the future behavior of both the public debt and the budget balance.

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  • Montes, Gabriel Caldas & Luna, Paulo Henrique, 2018. "Discretionary fiscal policy and disagreement in expectations about fiscal variables empirical evidence from Brazil," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 100-116.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:73:y:2018:i:c:p:100-116
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2018.03.007
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    Cited by:

    1. Montes, Gabriel Caldas & de Hollanda Lima, Natalia Teixeira, 2022. "Discretionary fiscal policy, fiscal credibility and inflation risk premium," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 208-222.
    2. Montes, Gabriel Caldas & Nicolay, Rodolfo Tomás da Fonseca & Acar, Tatiana, 2019. "Do fiscal communication and clarity of fiscal announcements affect public debt uncertainty? Evidence from Brazil," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 38-60.
    3. Gabriel Caldas Montes & Paulo henrique Luna, 2021. "Effects of discretionary fiscal policy and fiscal communication on fiscal credibility: Empirical evidence from Brazil," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(3), pages 1486-1500.
    4. Montes, Gabriel Caldas & Acar, Tatiana, 2020. "Fiscal credibility, target revisions and disagreement in expectations about fiscal results," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 38-58.
    5. Diego Silveira Pacheco de Oliveira & Gabriel Caldas Montes, 2020. "Sovereign credit news and disagreement in expectations about the exchange rate: evidence from Brazil," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 48(3), pages 660-698, August.
    6. Gabriel Caldas Montes & José Américo Pereira Antunes & Alexei Ferreira Araújo, 2021. "Effects of monetary policy and credibility on financial intermediation: evidence from the Brazilian banking sector," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 1191-1219, March.
    7. Gabriel Caldas Montes & Igor Mendes Marcelino, 2023. "Uncertainties and disagreements in expectations of professional forecasters: Evidence from an inflation targeting developing country," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(4), pages 937-956, July.
    8. Montes, Gabriel Caldas & Souza, Ivan, 2020. "Sovereign default risk, debt uncertainty and fiscal credibility: The case of Brazil," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    9. Gabriel Caldas Montes & Paulo Henrique Lourenço Luna, 2022. "Do fiscal opacity, fiscal impulse, and fiscal credibility affect disagreement about economic growth forecasts? Empirical evidence from Brazil considering the period of political instability and presid," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(4), pages 2356-2393, November.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Discretionary fiscal policy; Disagreement in expectations; Public debt; Budget balance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

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