Effects of Fiscal Rules and Political Framework: Evidence from COVID-19 Crisis

Öz

The COVID-19-Crisis impacted economic growth globally, opening up the need for public spending. These conditions put national fiscal authorities under pressure, challenging them primarily to remedy the economic downturn, and secondly to balance fiscal resources. We analyze whether alternative institutional frameworks, fiscal rules and political regimes across numerous countries can explain different economic outcomes following the COVID-19-Crisis. The empirical results show that growth in GDP affects gross debt negatively, government revenue positively, and national savings positively for all subsets, except for the federal subset. The effect on government revenue for fiscal subset is higher than for no fiscal rule. In almost all the subgroup models, it can be observed that the COVID-19 period has a positive effect on gross government debt and a negative on government revenue, except for federal countries and countries with a fiscal rule and a majority government. For all subsets the effect of the COVID-19 variable is not significant in the national savings regression models. For the countries in the federal subset the explanatory variables are unable to reduce the government debt. Conclusively, we could propose adaptive fiscal rules, which motivate fiscal authorities to maintain fiscal balance in long debt and in the annual budget.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Fiscal Rules
• Fiscal Policy
• COVID-19

Mali Kuralların ve Siyasi Yapının Etkileri: COVID-19 Krizinden Kanıtlar

Öz

COVID-19 krizi, küresel olarak ekonomik büyümeyi etkileyerek kamu harcamalarına duyulan ihtiyacı ortaya çıkardı. Bu koşullar, ulusal mali otoriteleri baskı altına almakta ve onları öncelikle ekonomik gerilemeyi düzeltmeye, diğer yandan da mali kaynakları dengelemeye zorlamaktadır. Bu çalışmada, dünya genelindeki COVID-19 krizinin ardından oluşan farklı ekonomik sonuçların, farklı kurumsal yapılar, mali kurallar ve siyasi rejimler tarafından açıklayıp açıklayamayacağı analiz edilmiştir. Elde edilen ampirik sonuçlar, gayri safi yurtiçi hasıladaki büyümenin federal devlet yapısına sahip ülkeler hariç tüm alt gruplar için brüt borcu olumsuz, hükümet gelirini olumlu ve kamu tasarruflarını olumlu yönde etkilediğini göstermektedir. Mali kural uygulayan devletler için kamu geliri üzerindeki etki, mali kuralın olmadığı duruma göre daha yüksektir. Federal ülkeler, mali kurala sahip ülkeler ve çoğunluk hükümeti olan ülkeler dışında, neredeyse tüm alt grup modellerinde, COVID-19 döneminin kamu brüt borcu üzerinde olumlu ve devlet gelirleri üzerinde olumsuz bir etkiye sahip olduğu gözlemlenmiştir. Tüm alt gruplar için, kamu tasarrufu regresyon modellerinde COVID-19 değişkeninin etkisi anlamlı değildir. Federal yapıya sahip ülkeler için modeldeki açıklayıcı değişkenlerin devlet borcunu azaltamadığı tespit edilmiştir. Sonuç olarak, uzun vadeli borçlarda ve yıllık bütçede mali dengeyi korumaya motive eden uyarlanabilir mali kurallar önerilmektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Mali Kural
• Maliye Politikası
• COVID-19

Kaynakça

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