IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/empiri/v41y2014i2p247-271.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The fundamentals of sovereign debt sustainability: evidence from 15 OECD countries

Author

Listed:
  • Christian Schoder

Abstract

We study the sustainability of sovereign debt accumulation in 15 OECD countries using quarterly data from 1980 to 2010 with a focus on how and in what countries debt sustainability changed after the commencement of the Euro Convergence Criteria in 1997 as well as after the financial meltdown in 2007. We define sustainability as the validity of the inter-temporal budget constraint of the government and test a sufficient condition motivated by Bohn (Q J Econ, 113(3):949–963, 1998 ) using single-country and pooled regressions. We find evidence that the Euro Convergence Criteria contributed to the sustainability of debt accumulation. Further, while the yield spreads suggest the debt crisis is a problem of the southern Euro countries, we find a lack of debt sustainability for Greece, Portugal and France but not for Italy and Spain. In terms of debt sustainability, the crisis adversely affected primarily stand-alone countries rather than members of the European Monetary Union. Nevertheless, yield spreads increased more in the southern countries of the monetary union than in stand-alone countries. Our results support the view that countries within a monetary union are more prone to investors’ sentiments than stand-alone countries. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Christian Schoder, 2014. "The fundamentals of sovereign debt sustainability: evidence from 15 OECD countries," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(2), pages 247-271, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:empiri:v:41:y:2014:i:2:p:247-271
    DOI: 10.1007/s10663-013-9210-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10663-013-9210-6
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10663-013-9210-6?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
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Henning Bohn, 1998. "The Behavior of U. S. Public Debt and Deficits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 949-963.
    2. Fincke Bettina & Greiner Alfred, 2011. "Debt Sustainability in Selected Euro Area Countries: Empirical Evidence Estimating Time-Varying Parameters," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 15(3), pages 1-23, May.
    3. 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.
    4. Paul De Grauwe, 2014. "The Governance of a Fragile Eurozone," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Exchange Rates and Global Financial Policies, chapter 12, pages 297-320, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Christian Schoder & Christian R. Proaño & Willi Semmler, 2012. "Are the current account imbalances between EMU countries sustainable?," IMK Working Paper 90-2012, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    6. Bohn, Henning, 1991. "The Sustainability of Budget Deficits with Lump-Sum and with Income-Based Taxation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(3), pages 580-604, August.
    7. M. Hashem Pesaran & Yongcheol Shin & Richard J. Smith, 2001. "Bounds testing approaches to the analysis of level relationships," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(3), pages 289-326.
    8. De Grauwe, Paul & Ji, Yuemei, 2012. "Mispricing of Sovereign Risk and Multiple Equilibria in the Eurozone," CEPS Papers 6548, Centre for European Policy Studies.
    9. Christian Schoder & Christian R. Proaño & Willi Semmler, 2013. "Are The Current Account Imbalances Between Emu Countries Sustainable? Evidence From Parametric And Non‐Parametric Tests," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 1179-1204, November.
    10. repec:lic:licosd:30412 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Alfred Greiner & Uwe Koeller & Willi Semmler, 2006. "Testing the sustainability of German fiscal policy: evidence for the period 1960–2003," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 33(2), pages 127-140, June.
    12. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-1445, November.
    13. Alfred Greiner & Uwe Köller & Willi Semmler, 2007. "Debt sustainability in the European Monetary Union: Theory and empirical evidence for selected countries," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(2), pages 194-218, April.
    14. Bohn, Henning, 1995. "The Sustainability of Budget Deficits in a Stochastic Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 257-271, February.
    15. Alfred Greiner & Bettina Fincke, 2009. "Public Debt and Economic Growth," Dynamic Modeling and Econometrics in Economics and Finance, Springer, number 978-3-642-01745-2, March.
    16. Chow, Gregory C & Lin, An-loh, 1971. "Best Linear Unbiased Interpolation, Distribution, and Extrapolation of Time Series by Related Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 53(4), pages 372-375, November.
    17. Fernando C. Ballabriga & Carlos Martinez-Mongay, 2005. "Sustainability of EU public finances," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 225, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    18. Bohn, Henning, 2007. "Are stationarity and cointegration restrictions really necessary for the intertemporal budget constraint?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1837-1847, October.
    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. Christian R. Proaño & Christian Schoder & Willi Semmler, 2013. "Financial Stress, Sovereign Debt and Economic Activity in Industrialized Countries: Evidence from Nonlinear Dynamic Panels," Working Papers 1304, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    2. Pierre L Siklos, 2014. "Inflation forecasts in Asia and the Pacific: performance, disagreement and spillovers," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Globalisation, inflation and monetary policy in Asia and the Pacific, volume 77, pages 15-30, Bank for International Settlements.
    3. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/8g1v863ou8ne8avs9kr75pav8 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Aristei, David & Martelli, Duccio, 2014. "Sovereign bond yield spreads and market sentiment and expectations: Empirical evidence from Euro area countries," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 76(C), pages 55-84.
    5. Andreea Stoian & Filip Iorgulescu, 2016. "The study of public debt: which are the distinctions between the emerging and advanced economies in the European Union?," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 43(1), pages 167-196, February.
    6. Rannenberg, Ansgar & Schoder, Christian & Strasky, Jan, 2015. "The macroeconomic effects of the Euro Area's fiscal consolidation 2011-2013: A Simulation-based approach," Research Technical Papers 03/RT/15, Central Bank of Ireland.
    7. Proaño, Christian R. & Schoder, Christian & Semmler, Willi, 2014. "Financial stress, sovereign debt and economic activity in industrialized countries: Evidence from dynamic threshold regressions," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 17-37.
    8. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/8g1v863ou8ne8avs9kr75pav8 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Ansgar Rannenberg & Christian Schoder & Jan Strásky, 2015. "The macroeconomic effects of the Euro Area?s fiscal consolidation 2011-2013," IMK Working Paper 156-2015, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    10. Piotr Ciżkowicz & Andrzej Rzońca & Rafał Trzeciakowski, 2015. "Windfall of Low Interest Payments and Fiscal Sustainability in the Euro Area: Analysis through Panel Fiscal Reaction Functions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(4), pages 475-510, November.
    11. Pierre Aldama & Jérôme Creel, 2016. "Why fiscal regimes matter for fiscal sustainability analysis: an application to France," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03459336, HAL.
    12. R. Golinelli & I. Mammi & A. Musolesi, 2018. "Parameter heterogeneity, persistence and cross-sectional dependence: new insights on fiscal policy reaction functions for the Euro area," Working Papers wp1120, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    13. Katia Berti & Eugeniu Colesnic & Cyril Desponts & Stephanie Pamies & Etienne Sail, 2016. "Fiscal Reaction Functions for European Union Countries," European Economy - Discussion Papers 028, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    14. Akhmadieva, Veronika, 2022. "Fiscal adjustment in a panel of countries 1870–2016," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 555-568.
    15. Iancu, Aurel & Olteanu, Dan Constantin, 2023. "Debt Limit, Fiscal Space and Fiscal Fatigue in the Central and Eastern European Countries of EU," Working Papers of National Institute for Economic Research 230629, Institutul National de Cercetari Economice (INCE).
    16. Amélie BARBIER-GAUCHARD & Nicolas MAZUY, 2018. "Country-specific fiscal reaction functions: what lessons for EMU ?," Working Papers of BETA 2018-28, Bureau d'Economie Théorique et Appliquée, UDS, Strasbourg.
    17. Checherita-Westphal, Cristina & Žďárek, Václav, 2017. "Fiscal reaction function and fiscal fatigue: evidence for the euro area," Working Paper Series 2036, European Central Bank.
    18. Pierre Aldama & Jérôme Creel, 2017. "Why Fiscal Regimes Matter for Fiscal Sustainability: An Application to France," Working Papers 2017.01, International Network for Economic Research - INFER.

    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. Maciej WYSOCKI & Cezary WÓJCIK, 2021. "Fiscal Sustainability in Poland: How Did the Public Policy Shift of 2016–2019 Impact the Country’s Long-Term," Ekonomista, Polskie Towarzystwo Ekonomiczne, issue 6, pages 777-798.
    2. Helmut Herwartz & Malte Rengel, 2018. "Size-corrected inference in fiscal policy reaction functions: a three country assessment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 391-416, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Zhengyang Jiang & Hanno Lustig & Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh & Mindy Z. Xiaolan, 2020. "Manufacturing Risk-free Government Debt," NBER Working Papers 27786, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Hyejin Ko, 2020. "Measuring fiscal sustainability in the welfare state: fiscal space as fiscal sustainability," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 531-554, May.
    6. Maciej Wysocki & Cezary Wójcik, 2021. "Fiscal sustainability in the EU after the global crisis: Is there any progress? Evidence from Poland," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(3), pages 3997-4012, July.
    7. Malte Rengel, 2020. "Sustainability of European fiscal balances: Just a statistical artifact?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1681-1712, April.
    8. Betty Daniel & Christos Shiamptanis, 2008. "Fiscal Policy in the European Monetary Union," Discussion Papers 08-11, University at Albany, SUNY, Department of Economics.
    9. Fincke, Bettina & Greiner, Alfred, 2011. "Do large industrialized economies pursue sustainable debt policies? A comparative study for Japan, Germany and the United States," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 202-213.
    10. Wysocki, Maciej & Wojcik, Cezary & Freytag, Andreas, 2024. "Populists and fiscal policy: The case of Poland," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    11. José Alves & Clarisse Wagner, 2024. "Leveraging interest-growth differentials: Hidden effects of government financial assets in the European Union," Working Papers REM 2024/0307, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, REM, Universidade de Lisboa.
    12. Gerrit B. Koester & Christoph Priesmeier, 2013. "Does Wagner´s Law Ruin the Sustainability of German Public Finances?," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 69(3), pages 256-288, September.
    13. Piotr Ciżkowicz & Andrzej Rzońca & Rafał Trzeciakowski, 2015. "Windfall of Low Interest Payments and Fiscal Sustainability in the Euro Area: Analysis through Panel Fiscal Reaction Functions," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 68(4), pages 475-510, November.
    14. Barbie, Martin & Hagedorn, Marcus & Kaul, Ashok, 2001. "Government Debt as Insurance against Macroeconomic Risk," IZA Discussion Papers 412, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. António Afonso & João Tovar Jalles, 2012. "Revisiting fiscal sustainability: panel cointegration and structural breaks in OECD countries," Working Papers Department of Economics 2012/29, ISEG - Lisbon School of Economics and Management, Department of Economics, Universidade de Lisboa.
    16. 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.
    17. P.S. Renjith & K.R. Shanmugam, 2018. "Sustainable Debt Policies of Indian State Governments," Margin: The Journal of Applied Economic Research, National Council of Applied Economic Research, vol. 12(2), pages 224-243, May.
    18. Maria Cornachione Kula, 2019. "The behavior of U.S. States’ debts and deficits," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 43(3), pages 267-289.
    19. Burret Heiko T. & Feld Lars P. & Köhler Ekkehard A., 2013. "Sustainability of Public Debt in Germany – Historical Considerations and Time Series Evidence," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 233(3), pages 291-335, June.
    20. Juan Carlos Cuestas & Luis A. Gil-Alana & Laura Sauci, 2020. "Public finances in the EU-27: Are they sustainable?," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 47(1), pages 181-204, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sovereign debt; Sustainability; Debt crisis; Bounds testing approach; Pooled mean-group estimator; H62; H63; E60;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General

    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:kap:empiri:v:41:y:2014:i:2:p:247-271. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.