Fiscal Policy Effectiveness in Japan
Fiscal Policy Effectiveness in Japan
复制标题
日本财政政策的有效性
DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.310106
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发表时间：
2002
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
A. Posen
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kenneth N. Kuttner;A. Posen
过去10年来，日本财政政策的有效性一直备受争议。我们对1976-1999年期间的真实的GDP、税收和公共支出进行了结构性VAR分析，考察了日本财政政策的有效性。我们发现，无论是以减税还是公共工程支出的形式，扩张性财政政策都具有显著的刺激效果。使用一种新的方法计算政策乘数从结构VAR，我们计算出，减税的乘数是约25%，在四年的时间跨度比公共工程支出，虽然两者都远远超过一个。历史分解显示，日本的财政政策在1990年代的大部分时间里都是紧缩性的，增长率的变化很大一部分可以归因于财政政策冲击;因此，公共债务的增加大部分可归因于经济衰退导致的税收减少。直接考察储蓄行为，我们发现李嘉图效应的证据有限，不足以抵消酌情财政政策的短期效应。
The effectiveness of fiscal policy in Japan over the past decade has been a matter of great controversy. We investigate the effectiveness of Japanese fiscal policy over the 1976-1999 period using a structural VAR analysis of real GDP, tax revenues, and public expenditures. We find that expansionary fiscal policy, whether in the form of tax cuts or of public works spending, had significant stimulative effects. Using a new method of computing policy multipliers from structural VARs, we calculate that the multiplier on tax cuts is about 25% higher at a four-year horizon than that on public works spending, though both are well in excess of one. A historical decomposition reveals that Japanese fiscal policy was contractionary over much of the 1990s, and a significant proportion of the variation in growth can be attributed to fiscal policy shocks; accordingly, most of the run-up in public debt is attributable to declining tax revenues due to the recession. Examining savings behavior directly, we find limited evidence of Ricardian effects, insufficient to offset the short-term effects of discretionary fiscal policy.