IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/12317.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How sustainable are fiscal deficits? Evidence from Mediterranean countries

Author

Listed:
  • Aristovnik, Aleksander

Abstract

The paper’s main purpose is to assess the short-, medium- and long-term sustainability of fiscal policy in the great majority of the EU and non-EU member states in the Mediterranean Region. By using mainstream (primary fiscal gap) theory (proposed by Buiter (1983) and Blanchard (1990)), the difference between the required primary fiscal balance to GDP ratio and the actual primary fiscal balance to GDP ratio is calculated for selected Mediterranean countries. Based on simple mainstream theory measures of fiscal sustainability, the results indicate that fiscal sustainability seems to be a problem in many Mediterranean countries, particularly in Greece, Italy and France (in the EU Mediterranean region) as well as in Croatia, Egypt, Lebanon and Turkey (in the non-EU Mediterranean region). However, since the paper is dealing with an ex ante analysis on the grounds of ex post algebra of sustainability some caution should be exercised.

Suggested Citation

  • Aristovnik, Aleksander, 2008. "How sustainable are fiscal deficits? Evidence from Mediterranean countries," MPRA Paper 12317, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:12317
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/12317/1/MPRA_paper_12317.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Valérie Berenger & Matthieu Llorca, 2007. "Political determinants of the fiscal sustainability: evidence from six individual developed countries," Post-Print halshs-00268966, HAL.
    2. Aristovnik, Aleksander & Berčič, Boštjan, 2007. "Fiscal Sustainability in Selected Transition Countries," MPRA Paper 122, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. A. Roux, 1993. "The Public Debt: A Medium‐term Perspective," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 61(4), pages 10-29, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Aristovnik, Aleksander, 2008. "Fiscal Sustainability In The Mediterranean Region – A Comparison Between The Eu And Non-Eu Member States," Journal for Economic Forecasting, Institute for Economic Forecasting, vol. 5(4), pages 161-173, December.
    2. Adel M. EL-MAHDY & Neveen M. TORAYEH, 2009. "Debt Sustainabiliy And Economic Growth In Egypt," International Journal of Applied Econometrics and Quantitative Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 9(1).
    3. Ismet GOCER & Mehmet MERCAN, 2016. "Which country after Greece? Sustainability of budget deficits in selected EU countries: A panel cointegration analysis with multiple structural breaks under cross-section dependence," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania - AGER, vol. 0(3(608), A), pages 205-220, Autumn.
    4. Alpaslan AKÇORAOĞLU & Erkan AĞASLAN, 2009. "Current Account Deficits, Sustainability and Global Financial Crisis: Evidence from Turkey, 1987-2008," Ekonomik Yaklasim, Ekonomik Yaklasim Association, vol. 20(72), pages 1-20.
    5. Matthieu Llorca & Srdjan Redzepagic, 2008. "Debt sustainability in the EU New Member States: empirical evidence from a panel of eight Central and East European countries," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 159-172.
    6. F.C. vN. Fourie & P. Burger, 2003. "Fiscal Sustainability And The South African Transformation Challenge," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 71(4), pages 806-829, December.
    7. Marinko Škare & Romina Prziklas Druzeta, 2015. "Fiscal Austerity Versus Growth in Croatia," Contemporary Economics, University of Economics and Human Sciences in Warsaw., vol. 9(1), March.
    8. Srđan Redžepagić & Matthieu Llorca, 2007. "Does Politics Matter in the Conduct of Fiscal Policy? Political Determinants of the Fiscal Sustainability: Evidence from Seven Individual Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC)," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 54(4), pages 489-500, December.
    9. Marianna Sávai, 2016. "Short-term Fiscal Sustainability of V4 Countries," European Financial and Accounting Journal, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2016(3), pages 169-182.
    10. Samuel S Jibao & Niek Schoeman & Ruthira Naraidoo, 2010. "Fiscal Regime Changes and the Sustainability of Fiscal Imbalance in South Africa: A Smooth Transition Error-Correction Approach," Working Papers 201023, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    11. Ismet GOCER & Mehmet MERCAN, 2016. "Which country after Greece? Sustainability of budget deficits in selected EU countries: A panel cointegration analysis with multiple structural breaks under cross-section dependence," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(3(608), A), pages 205-220, Autumn.
    12. Holmøy, Erling & Strøm, Birger, 2013. "Computable General Equilibrium Assessments of Fiscal Sustainability in Norway," Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, in: Peter B. Dixon & Dale Jorgenson (ed.), Handbook of Computable General Equilibrium Modeling, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 0, pages 105-158, Elsevier.
    13. 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.
    14. Aristovnik, Aleksander & Djurić, Sandra, 2010. "Twin deficits and the Feldstein-Horioka puzzle: a comparison of the EU member states and candidate countries," MPRA Paper 24149, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Mihaela Tofan & Mihaela Onofrei & Anca-Florentina Vatamanu, 2020. "Fiscal Responsibility Legal Framework—New Paradigm for Fiscal Discipline in the EU," Risks, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-18, July.
    16. Reitschuler, Gerhard, 2008. "Assessing Ricardian equivalence for the New Member States: Does debt-neutrality matter?," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 119-128, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    the Mediterranean region; public finance; fiscal sustainability; forecasting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H60 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - General
    • H68 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Forecasts of Budgets, Deficits, and Debt

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:pra:mprapa:12317. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.