Evidence on Fiscal Consolidations and the Evolution of Public Debt in Europe
CESifo, Munich, 2012
CESifo Working Paper No. 4027
The objective of this paper is to gain insights into the relationship between deficit-reducing policies and the evolution of the debt/GDP ratio. We consider past events of fiscal consolidation in a selected group of EU countries, by using the new data set recently made available by Devries et al. (2011), and check what is the associated change of the debt/GDP ratio both from a short and medium-term perspective. Our results show that a favourable short-term response emerges in the majority of the countries considered, while the medium-term one is adverse for all. The analysis provides information to assess the convenience of deficit-reducing policies to contain or invert the evolution of the debt/GDP ratio.
Fiscal Policy, Macroeconomics and Growth
Public Finance