IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2014-231.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Safe Debt and Uncertainty in Emerging Markets: An Application to South Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Magnus Saxegaard

Abstract

This paper develops a methodology for estimating a safe public debt level that would allow countries to remain below a maximum sustainable debt limit, taking into account the impact of uncertainty. Our analysis implies that fiscal policy should target a debt level well below the debt ceiling to allow space to absorb shocks that are likely to hit the economy. To illustrate our findings we apply the methodology to estimate a safe debt level for South Africa. Our results suggest that South Africa’s debt ceiling is around 60 percent of GDP, although uncertainty is high. Simulations suggest targeting a debt-to-GDP ratio of 40 percent of GDP would allow South Africa to remain below this debt ceiling over the medium-term with a high degree of confidence.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Magnus Saxegaard, 2014. "Safe Debt and Uncertainty in Emerging Markets: An Application to South Africa," IMF Working Papers 2014/231, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2014/231
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=42546
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas Herndon & Michael Ash & Robert Pollin, 2014. "Does high public debt consistently stifle economic growth? A critique of Reinhart and Rogoff," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 38(2), pages 257-279.
    2. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2010. "Growth in a Time of Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 573-578, May.
    3. Gabriel Di Bella, 2008. "A Stochastic Framework for Public Debt Sustainability Analysis," IMF Working Papers 2008/058, International Monetary Fund.
    4. Ilzetzki, Ethan & Mendoza, Enrique G. & Végh, Carlos A., 2013. "How big (small?) are fiscal multipliers?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 239-254.
    5. Enrique G. Mendoza & P. Marcelo Oviedo, 2009. "Public Debt, Fiscal Solvency and Macroeconomic Uncertainty in Latin America The Cases of Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica and Mexico," Economía Mexicana NUEVA ÉPOCA, CIDE, División de Economía, vol. 0(2), pages 133-173, July-Dece.
    6. Bi, Huixin, 2012. "Sovereign default risk premia, fiscal limits, and fiscal policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 389-410.
    7. Miss Gabriela Dobrescu & Iva Petrova & Nazim Belhocine & Mr. Emanuele Baldacci, 2011. "Assessing Fiscal Stress," IMF Working Papers 2011/100, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Estian Calitz & Krige Siebrits & Ian Stuart, 2013. "The accuracy of fiscal projections in South Africa," Working Papers 24/2013, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    9. Mr. Jonathan David Ostry & Mr. Abdul d Abiad, 2005. "Primary Surpluses and sustainable Debt Levels in Emerging Market Countries," IMF Policy Discussion Papers 2005/006, International Monetary Fund.
    10. Mr. Andrew Berg & Mr. Rafael A Portillo & Mr. Edward F Buffie & Ms. Catherine A Pattillo & Luis-Felipe Zanna, 2012. "Public Investment, Growth, and Debt Sustainability: Putting together the Pieces," IMF Working Papers 2012/144, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Mr. Kei Kawakami & Rafael Romeu, 2011. "Identifying Fiscal Policy Transmission in Stochastic Debt Forecasts," IMF Working Papers 2011/107, International Monetary Fund.
    12. Ruthira Naraidoo & Leroi Raputsoane, 2015. "Debt Sustainability and Financial Crises in South Africa," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(1), pages 224-233, January.
    13. Charl Jooste & Mr. Alfredo Cuevas & Ian C. Stuart & Philippe Burger, 2011. "Fiscal sustainability and the fiscal reaction function for South Africa," IMF Working Papers 2011/069, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Oya Celasun & Xavier Debrun & Jonathan D. Ostry, 2006. "Primary Surplus Behavior and Risks to Fiscal Sustainability in Emerging Market Countries: A "Fan-Chart" Approach," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 53(3), pages 1-3.
    15. Markus Eberhardt & Andrea F. Presbitero, 2013. "This Time They’re Different: Heterogeneity and Nonlinearity in the Relationship between Debt and Growth," Discussion Papers 2013/10, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    16. Huixin Bi & Ms. Wenyi Shen & Ms. Susan S. Yang, 2014. "Fiscal Limits, External Debt, and Fiscal Policy in Developing Countries," IMF Working Papers 2014/049, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Petia Topalova & Dan Nyberg, 2010. "What Level of Public Debt Could India Target?," IMF Working Papers 2010/007, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Ioana-Laura Țibulcă, 2021. "Debt Sustainability: Can EU Member States Use Environmental Taxes to Regain Fiscal Space?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(11), pages 1-15, May.
    2. Philippe Burger & Krige Siebrits & Estian Calitz, 2015. "The public sector balance sheet and fiscal consolidation in South Africa," Working Papers 11/2015, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    3. Abdulaleem Isiaka & Alexander Mihailov & Giovanni Razzi, 2022. "Distributional Effects of Public Spending and Tax Shocks in Middle-Income Countries: A Panel VAR Approach," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2022-09, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    4. Gnangnon Sena Kimm, 2018. "Export Product Concentration and De Facto Fiscal Space: Does Openness to International Trade matter?," Global Economy Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 18(1), pages 1-12, March.
    5. Mr. Olumuyiwa S Adedeji & Mr. Calixte Ahokpossi & Claudio Battiati & Mrs. Mai Farid, 2016. "A Probabilistic Approach to Fiscal Space and Prudent Debt Level: Application to Low-Income Developing Countries," IMF Working Papers 2016/163, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Sèna Kimm Gnangnon & Jean-François Brun, 2020. "Tax reform and fiscal space in developing countries," Eurasian Economic Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 10(2), pages 237-265, June.
    7. Sena Kimm Gnangnon, 2019. "De Facto Fiscal Space in Donor-countries and Their Aid Supply: To What Extent is Trade-related Aid Supply Affected?," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 8(1), pages 1-25, 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. Huixin Bi & Ms. Wenyi Shen & Ms. Susan S. Yang, 2014. "Fiscal Limits, External Debt, and Fiscal Policy in Developing Countries," IMF Working Papers 2014/049, International Monetary Fund.
    2. International Monetary Fund, 2014. "Sri Lanka: Selected Issues," IMF Staff Country Reports 2014/286, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Mitze, Timo & Matz, Florian, 2015. "Public debt and growth in German federal states: What can Europe learn?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 208-228.
    4. Balázs Égert, 2015. "Public debt, economic growth and nonlinear effects: Myth or reality?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 226-238.
    5. Markus Ahlborn & Rainer Schweickert, 2018. "Public debt and economic growth – economic systems matter," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 373-403, April.
    6. Branimir Jovanovic, 2017. "Growth forecast errors and government investment and consumption multipliers," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 83-107, January.
    7. Kazuo Nishimura & Carine Nourry & Thomas Seegmuller & Alain Venditti, 2015. "On the (de)stabilizing effect of public debt in a Ramsey model with heterogeneous agents," International Journal of Economic Theory, The International Society for Economic Theory, vol. 11(1), pages 7-24, March.
    8. Shen, Wenyi & Yang, Shu-Chun S. & Zanna, Luis-Felipe, 2018. "Government spending effects in low-income countries," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 201-219.
    9. Philipp Heimberger, 2017. "Did fiscal consolidation cause the double-dip recession in the euro area?," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 5(3), pages 439-458, July.
    10. Sayed O. M. Timuno & Joel Hinaunye Eita & Lanouar Charfeddine, 2020. "Towards an effective fiscal stimulus: Evidence from Botswana," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 1790948-179, January.
    11. Christophe Blot & Marion Cochard & Jérôme Creel & Bruno Ducoudré & Danielle Schweisguth & Xavier Timbeau, 2014. "Fiscal Consolidation, Public Debt and Output Dynamics in the Euro Area: lessons from a simple model with time-varying fiscal multipliers," Revue d'économie politique, Dalloz, vol. 124(6), pages 953-989.
    12. Ruthira Naraidoo & Leroi Raputsoane, 2015. "Debt Sustainability and Financial Crises in South Africa," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(1), pages 224-233, January.
    13. Valentinyi, Ákos & Pápa, Levente, 2008. "Költségvetési fenntarthatóság [Budget sustainability]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(5), pages 395-426.
    14. Pablo A. Gluzmann & Martin M. Guzman & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 2018. "An Analysis of Puerto Rico's Debt Relief Needs to Restore Debt Sustainability," NBER Working Papers 25256, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Nicholas Oulton, 2013. "Medium and long run prospects for UK growth in the aftermath of the financial crisis," Discussion Papers 1307, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    16. José Augusto Lopes da Veiga & Alexandra Ferreira-Lopes & Tiago Neves Sequeira, 2016. "Public Debt, Economic Growth and Inflation in African Economies," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 84(2), pages 294-322, June.
    17. Gustavo Adler & Sebastian Sosa, 2016. "External Factors in Debt Sustainability Analysis: An Application to Latin America?," Journal of Banking and Financial Economics, University of Warsaw, Faculty of Management, vol. 1(5), pages 81-120, June.
    18. Charles Wyplosz, 2011. "Debt Sustainability Assessment: Mission Impossible," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 2(3).
    19. Ms. Anja Baum & Andrew Hodge & Ms. Aiko Mineshima & Ms. Marialuz Moreno Badia & Rene Tapsoba, 2017. "Can They Do It All? Fiscal Space in Low-Income Countries," IMF Working Papers 2017/110, International Monetary Fund.
    20. Gulasekaran Rajaguru & Safdar Ullah Khan & Habib-Ur Rahman, 2021. "Analysis of Australia’s Fiscal Vulnerability to Crisis," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-13, June.

    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:imf:imfwpa:2014/231. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

    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.