IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijsuse/v3y2011i2p235-254.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Debt sustainability in Germany: empirical evidence for federal states

Author

Listed:
  • Bettina Fincke
  • Alfred Greiner

Abstract

This paper studies whether the public debt policies of former West German states from 1975 until 2006 were sustainable. We test if the primary surplus relative to GDP is a positive function of the public debt to GDP ratio where we allow for time-varying reaction coefficients by resorting to penalised spline estimation. We also perform stationarity tests with respect to the real budget deficit to gain additional insights. Our analysis suggests that two groups of states can be distinguished, one with states that seem to pursue sustainable debt policies. However, with one exception, even those states are characterised by rising debt to GDP ratios, which is not compatible with sustainability in the long run. For the other group, sustainability can be stated only at a low-significance level or does not seem to be given at all. Thus, all states in the second group should put much more emphasis on stabilising debt.

Suggested Citation

  • Bettina Fincke & Alfred Greiner, 2011. "Debt sustainability in Germany: empirical evidence for federal states," International Journal of Sustainable Economy, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 3(2), pages 235-254.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijsuse:v:3:y:2011:i:2:p:235-254
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=39442
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2012. "Fiscal Equalization Schemes and Fiscal Sustainability," ifo Working Paper Series 141, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    2. Burret, Heiko T. & Feld, Lars P. & Köhler, Ekkehard A., 2016. "(Un-)Sustainability of Public Finances in German Laender: A Panel Time Series Approach," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 254-265.
    3. Heiko T. Burret & Lars P. Feld & Ekkehard A. Köhler, 2017. "Fiscal Sustainability of the German Länder: Time-Series Evidence," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 73(1), pages 103-132, March.
    4. Magulsha George & K. R. Shanmugam, 2022. "Public Debt and External Debt Sustainability among BRICS Countries," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 16(3-4), pages 231-253, August.
    5. Samia Omrane Belguith & Foued Badr Gabsi, 2019. "Public Debt Sustainability in Tunisia: Empirical Evidence Estimating Time-Varying Parameters," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 10(2), pages 550-560, June.
    6. Ata Özkaya, 2014. "Hidden Overhang of Domestic Debt and Its Role in the This-Time-Is-Different Syndrome: An Empirical Contingent Liabilities Model," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(4), pages 73-94.
    7. Köhler, Ekkehard, 2015. "Fiscal Sustainability in Cross-Dependent Panels: Evidence from the German L nder," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 113104, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    8. Lars P. Feld & Ekkehard A. Köhler & Julia Wolfinger, 2020. "Modeling fiscal sustainability in dynamic macro-panels with heterogeneous effects: evidence from German federal states," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(1), pages 215-239, February.
    9. Ranjan Kumar Mohanty & Sidheswar Panda, 2020. "How Does Public Debt Affect the Indian Macroeconomy? A Structural VAR Approach," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 14(3), pages 253-284, August.
    10. Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2014. "Fiskalische Nachhaltigkeit und Transferzahlungen," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 67(07), pages 17-22, April.
    11. K. R. Shanmugam & K. Shanmugam, 2022. "Sustainability and Threshold Value of Public Debt in Tamil Nadu," Working Papers 2022-226, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    12. Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2015. "Fiscal Transfers and Fiscal Sustainability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(5), pages 975-1005, August.
    13. Johann Bröthaler & Michael Getzner & Gottfried Haber, 2015. "Sustainability of local government debt: a case study of Austrian municipalities," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 42(3), pages 521-546, August.
    14. Mohanty, Ranjan Kumar & Panda, Sidheswar, 2019. "How Does Public Debt affect the Indian Macroeconomy? A Structural VAR Approach," Working Papers 19/250, National Institute of Public Finance and Policy.
    15. K. R. Shanmugam & P.S. Renjith, 2023. "Sustainability and Threshold Value of Public Debt of Centre and All State Governments in India," Working Papers 2023-240, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    16. Markus Reischmann, 2016. "Empirical Studies on Public Debt and Fiscal Transfers," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 63.
    17. Ranjan Kumar Mohanty & Sidheswar Panda, 2019. "How Does Public Debt Affect the Indian Macroeconomy? A Structural VAR Approach," Working Papers id:12980, eSocialSciences.
    18. Heiko T. Burret & Lars P. Feld & Kö & Ekkehard A. hler, 2014. "Panel Cointegration Tests on the Fiscal Sustainability of German Laender," CESifo Working Paper Series 4929, CESifo.

    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:ids:ijsuse:v:3:y:2011:i:2:p:235-254. 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: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=301 .

    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.