Fiscal consolidation in times of financial stress: theory and evidence

我们研究了在金融压力时期财政整顿如何影响经济活动。财政整顿措施包括减少政府开支和转移支付以及增加税收。许多经合组织国家目前已颁布此类措施，随着各国政府试图控制公共债务，未来几年可能会采取进一步措施。金融压力时期的概念是指以下情况：1）由于违约风险增加，政府和/或私人机构的借贷成本很高; 2）货币政策的实施受到政策利率零下限的限制。虽然标准模型和大多数实证研究表明，在正常时期，即在借贷成本较低和货币政策不受约束的情况下，财政整顿不利于经济活动，但人们对财政紧张时期财政整顿的后果了解较少。因此，我们从理论和实证两方面评估了这样一个假设，即在金融压力时期，财政整顿的后果与正常时期的后果不同。为了做到这一点，我们开发的工具，使我们能够占国家依赖的财政政策措施的影响。在具体目标方面，我们的目标是开发一个模型的财政传导机制，其中也具有主权违约的可能性，建立强大的时间序列证据的影响，巩固措施在金融压力的时候，并最终，探索信誉的作用，巩固的成功。

We investigate how fiscal consolidation affects economic activity in times of financial stress. Measures of fiscal consolidation include the reduction of government spending and transfer payments as well as tax increases. Such measures are currently enacted in many OECD countries and further measures are likely to be observed in coming years as governments attempt to reign in public debt. The notion of times of financial stress is meant to capture a situation where 1) borrowing costs of governments and/or private agents are high because of increased default risk and 2) the conduct of monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound on policy rates. While standard models and most empirical studies suggest that fiscal consolidation is detrimental to economic activity in normal times, i.e. in a situation where borrowing costs are low and monetary policy is unconstrained, the consequences of consolidation in times of financial stress are less well understood. We therefore assess, both theoretically and empirically, the hypothesis that the consequences of fiscal consolidation in times of financial stress differ from its consequences in normal times. In order to do so, we develop tools which allow us to account for state dependence of the effects of fiscal policy measures. In terms of specific objectives we aim at developing a model of the fiscal transmission mechanism which also features the possibility of sovereign default, establishing robust time-series evidence on the effects of consolidations measures in times of financial stress, and, eventually, exploring the role of credibility for the success of consolidations.