Narrow Results

This paper examines the impact of fiscal deficit and its financing pattern on private corporate sector investment in India, for the period from 1970–1971 to 2012–2013. Using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Models, the study finds that fiscal deficit crowds out private investment both in the long run and in the short run. The results also show that internal (domestic) financing of fiscal deficit has significant negative impact on private investment but external (foreign) financing of fiscal deficit has insignificant effect. In the short run, availability of bank credit plays a more important role in investment decision making than the rate of interest in India. The study suggests that government should maintain the fiscal deficit within a sustainable level by reducing its unnecessary non-developmental expenditure, subsidies etc. The government should restructure its financing pattern of fiscal deficit since internal financing has a significant negative impact on private investment.

Fiscal policy is an essential ingredient of economic performance. The fiscal policy is considered as a short-run measure; however, this has long-lasting outcomes for any economy. The current study has examined the connection among different constituents of fiscal policy, i.e., federal government revenues and federal government expenditures; federal government revenues and different components of federal government expenditures; federal government expenditures and different components of federal government revenues and fiscal deficit and influential budgetary variables in the context of the economy of Pakistan. The study has empirically investigated the relationship among the budgetary variables for Pakistan from 1979 to 2017. For data analysis, time-series econometric techniques such as auto-regressive distributive lag (ARDL) approach and Granger causality test have been employed. The results of ARDL bounds test approach suggest the existence of long-run equilibrium relationship among the variables. The result of CUSUM and CUSUMSQ shows the stability of functional relationship tested in this study, which means that model is a useful instrument for policymaking. So, a rise or fall in budgetary variables causes changes in fiscal deficit in long run. The results of study endorse the proof of spent-and-tax hypothesis in the economy of Pakistan. The study suggests the need for extensive fiscal policy reforms in Pakistan.

The objective of this paper is to obtain the growth optimizing public debt to GDP ratio ($d$*), based on estimated output elasticity ($\alpha$) of public sector capital under the golden rule of budgetary deficit. After conducting unit root tests and cointegration analysis, value of $\alpha$ which is estimated under OLS, CLS and FMOLS, hovers around 0.281–0.29. Hence, the computed value of $d$* stands around 65–67% of GDP; modestly lower than the current value (73% in 2016). Since large revenue deficit has been persisting, effective value of $d$* would be even lower. Fiscal tightening, especially reducing revenue deficit and offloading the persistently loss making PSUs would be important for macroeconomic stability and accelerating economic growth.

This paper uses the bootstrap rolling window approach to analyze the dynamic causal relationship between the fiscal deficit and the trade deficit in the US from 1901 to 2018. We find the origination and termination of each causality period by considering the structural breaks. The results show that the fiscal deficit had a positive impact on the trade deficit from 1946 to 1956, from 1982 to 1998, in 2000 and from 2002 to 2008, which is in accord with the results of the Mundell–Fleming model, while it had a negative impact from 1937 to 1945. The trade deficit had a positive impact on the fiscal deficit from 1940 to 1942, from 1959 to 1975 and from 1981 to 1994, mainly due to the World War II, oil crisis and trade friction with Japan. It means that the fiscal policy of American federal government can affect the external imbalance.

The following sections are included:

• NATIONAL DEBT AND FISCAL DEFICITS
• SUMMARY
• QUESTIONS
• BACKGROUND: THE TIME VALUE OF MONEY
• CONNECTIONS: NATURAL ECONOMY