IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/1936.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Is Coordination of Fiscal Deficits Necessary?

Author

Listed:
  • Huizinga, Harry
  • Nielsen, Soren Bo

Abstract

National budget deficits can create externalities through their effects on international interest rates. This paper examines the scope for fiscal rules restricting government borrowing for the case where government revenues (on the margin) stem from capital income taxation. There is no need to coordinate national borrowing, if governments have access to both a saving and an investment tax instrument. In the absence of a saving tax, however, national fiscal policies affect welfare abroad through the international interest rate. A reduction in first period deficits tied to increased government spending later is always welfare improving. Reducing first period deficits without further coordination of subsequent tax and spending policies will generally not improve welfare.

Suggested Citation

  • Huizinga, Harry & Nielsen, Soren Bo, 1998. "Is Coordination of Fiscal Deficits Necessary?," CEPR Discussion Papers 1936, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:1936
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=1936
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    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. Jacob A. Frenkel & Assaf Razin, 1986. "Fiscal Policies and Real Exchange Rates in the World Economy," NBER Working Papers 2065, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1995. "Double-edged incentives: Institutions and policy coordination," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 38, pages 1973-2030, Elsevier.
    3. Torres,Francisco & Giavazzi,Francesco (ed.), 1993. "Adjustment and Growth in the European Monetary Union," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521440196, September.
    4. Frenkel, Jacob A & Razin, Assaf, 1986. "The International Transmission and Effects of Fiscal Policies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 330-335, May.
    5. Beetsma, Roel & Uhlig, Harald, 1997. "An Analysis of the 'Stability Pact'," CEPR Discussion Papers 1669, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Huizinga, Harry & Nielsen, Soren Bo, 2002. "The coordination of capital income and profit taxation with cross-ownership of firms," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 1-26, January.
    7. Alberto Alesina & Guido Tabellini, 1990. "A Positive Theory of Fiscal Deficits and Government Debt," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(3), pages 403-414.
    8. Bucovetsky, Sam & Wilson, John Douglas, 1991. "Tax competition with two tax instruments," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 333-350, November.
    9. Frenkel, Jacob A & Razin, Assaf, 1986. "Fiscal Policies in the World Economy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(3), pages 564-594, June.
    10. Olivier J. Blanchard & Lawrence H. Summers, 1984. "Perspectives on High World Real Interest Rates," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 15(2), pages 273-334.
    11. Michael Keen, 1993. "The welfare economics of tax co-ordination in the European Community : a survey," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 14(2), pages 15-36, February.
    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. Fritz Breuss & Andrea Weber, 1999. "Economic Policy Coordination in the EMU: Implications for the Stability Pact," EUI-RSCAS Working Papers 26, European University Institute (EUI), Robert Schuman Centre of Advanced Studies (RSCAS).
    2. Alexander Italianer, 1999. "The Euro and Internal Economic Policy Coordination," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 26(3), pages 201-216, September.
    3. Andrés Leal Marcos & Julio López Laborda, 2009. "Efectos externos del endeudamiento sobre la calificación crediticia de las Comunidades Autónomas," Hacienda Pública Española / Review of Public Economics, IEF, vol. 189(2), pages 81-106, June.

    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. Huizinga, Harry & Nielsen, Soren Bo, 2002. "The coordination of capital income and profit taxation with cross-ownership of firms," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 1-26, January.
    2. Zodrow, George R, 2003. "Tax Competition and Tax Coordination in the European Union," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 10(6), pages 651-671, November.
    3. Bo Nielsen, Soren, 1998. "On capital income tax policies under uncertainty," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(8), pages 1553-1580, September.
    4. Sugata Ghosh & Iannis A. Mourmouras & Sarmistha Pal & Ivan Paya, 2003. "On Public Investment, the Real Exchange Rate and Growth: Some Empirical Evidence from the UK and the USA," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 71(3), pages 242-264, June.
    5. Huizinga, Harry & Nielsen, Søren Bo, 2008. "Must losing taxes on saving be harmful?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(5-6), pages 1183-1192, June.
    6. Heipertz, Martin, 2003. "The Stability and Growth Pact - Not the best but better than nothing. Reviewing the debate on fiscal policy in Europe's Monetary Union," MPIfG Working Paper 03/10, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    7. William H. Branson, 1988. "Sources of Misalignment in the 1980s," NBER Chapters, in: Misalignment of Exchange Rates: Effects on Trade and Industry, pages 9-38, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    9. Andreas Haufler, 1996. "Optimal factor and commodity taxation in a small open economy," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 3(3), pages 425-442, July.
    10. Oscar Amerighi & Giuseppe De Feo, 2014. "Competition for FDI and Profit Shifting: On the Effects of Subsidies and Tax Breaks," FinanzArchiv: Public Finance Analysis, Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 70(3), pages 374-404, September.
    11. Michael P. Devereux, 2008. "Taxation of outbound direct investment: economic principles and tax policy considerations," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 24(4), pages 698-719, winter.
    12. Selahattin Dibooglu, 1997. "Accounting for US current account deficits: an empirical investigation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(6), pages 787-793.
    13. Sergio Rebelo & Carlos A. Végh, 1995. "Real Effects of Exchange-Rate-Based Stabilization: An Analysis of Competing Theories," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1995, Volume 10, pages 125-188, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Nicholas Sly & Caroline Weber, 2015. "Global tax policy and the synchronization of business cycles," Research Working Paper RWP 15-7, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    15. Fuest, Clemens & Huber, Bernd, 2001. "Tax Competition and Tax Coordination in a Median Voter Model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 107(1-2), pages 97-113, April.
    16. Killian J. McCarthy & Frederik van Doorn & Brigitte Unger, 2011. "Tax Competition and the Harmonisation of Corporate Tax Rates in Europe," Chapters, in: Miroslav N. Jovanović (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Integration, Volume II, chapter 20, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    17. Liontos, George & Philippopoulos, Apostolis, 2023. "Who benefits from international fiscal cooperation? The role of cross-country asymmetries," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 27(C).
    18. Florian Morvillier, 2018. "On the impact of the launch of the euro on EMU macroeconomic vulnerability," EconomiX Working Papers 2018-51, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    19. Andre Varella Mollick, 2016. "Adoption of the Gold Standard and Real Exchange Rates in the Core and Periphery, 1870–1913," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(1), pages 89-107, April.
    20. Tselmuun Tserenkhuu & Stephen Kosempel, 2024. "Life expectancy and business cycles in a small open economy," ISER Discussion Paper 1263, Institute of Social and Economic Research, Osaka University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Deficits; Fiscal Rules;

    JEL classification:

    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
    • H87 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - International Fiscal Issues; International Public Goods

    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:cpr:ceprdp:1936. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    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.