Giovanni Callegari

Successful Austerity in the United States, Europe and Japan

The output effects of 2009 fiscal expansions have been hotly debated. But the discussion of fiscal multipliers is even more relevant now that several European countries have had to quickly retract their stimulus measures in an effort to regain market confidence. Using regime-switching VARs we estimate the impact of fiscal adjustment on the United States, Europe and Japan allowing for fiscal multipliers to vary across recessions and booms. We also estimate ex ante probabilities of recessions derived in association with different-sized and different types of consolidation shocks (expenditure- versus tax-based). We use these estimates to understand how consolidations should be designed to be most effective in terms of permanently and rapidly reducing a country’s debt-to-GDP ratio. The main finding is that smooth and gradual consolidations are to be preferred to frontloaded or aggressive consolidations, especially for economies in recession facing high risk premia on public debt, because sheltering growth is key to the success of fiscal consolidation in these cases.

Public Expenditures on Social Programs and Household Consumption in China

This paper shows that increasing government social expenditures can make a substantive contribution to increasing household consumption in China. The paper first undertakes an empirical study of the relationship between the savings rate and social expenditures for a panel of OECD countries and provides illustrative estimates of their implications for China. It then applies a generational accounting framework to Chinese household income survey data. This analysis suggests that a sustained 1 percent of GDP increase in public expenditures, distributed equally across education, health, and pensions, would result in a permanent increase the household consumption ratio of 1¼ percentage points of GDP.

An Analysis of U.S. Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: Who Will Pay and How?

This paper updates existing measures of the U.S. fiscal gap to include federal laws up to and including the mid-December 2010 federal fiscal stimulus. It then applies the methodology of generational accounting to establish how the burden of adjustment required to attain fiscal sustainability is shared across generations. We find that the U.S. fiscal and generational imbalances are large under plausible parametric assumptions, and, while not much affected by the financial crisis, they have not improved much by the passing of the Final Healthcare Legislation. We find that, under our baseline scenario, a full elimination of the fiscal and generational imbalances would require all taxes to go up and all transfers to be cut immediately and permanently by 35 percent. A delay in the adjustment makes it more costly.

A toolkit for Assessing Fiscal Vulnerabilities and Risks in Advanced Economies

This paper presents a range of tools and indicators for analyzing fiscal vulnerabilities and risks for advanced economies. The analysis covers key short-, medium- and long-term dimensions. Short-term pressures are captured by assessing (i) gross funding needs, (ii) market perceptions of default risk, and (iii) stress dependence among sovereigns. Medium- and long-term pressures are summarized by (iv) medium- and long-term budgetary adjustment needs, (v) susceptibility of debt projections to growth and interest rate shocks, and (vi) stochastic risks to medium-term debt dynamics. Aiming to cover a wide range of advanced economies and minimize data lags, has also influenced the selection of empirical methods. Due to these features, they can, for example, help inform the joint IMF-FSB Early Warning Exercise (EWE) on the fiscal dimensions of economic risks.