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- Title
THE CASE FOR RESTRICTING FISCAL POLICY DISCRETION.
- Authors
Fatás, Antonio; Mihov, Ilian
- Abstract
This paper studies the effects of discretionary fiscal policy on output volatility and economic growth. Using data for 91 countries, we isolate three empirical regularities: (1) governments that use fiscal policy aggressively induce significant macroeconomic instability; (2) the volatility of output caused by discretionary fiscal policy lowers economic growth by more than 0.8 percentage points for every percentage point increase in volatility; (3) prudent use of fiscal policy is explained to a large extent by the presence of political constraints and other political and institutional variables. The evidence in the paper supports arguments for constraining discretion by imposing institutional restrictions on governments as a way to reduce output volatility and increase the rate of economic growth.
- Subjects
FISCAL policy; ECONOMIC development; PRODUCTION (Economic theory); MARKET volatility; MACROECONOMICS
- Publication
Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2003, Vol 118, Issue 4, p1419
- ISSN
0033-5533
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1162/003355303322552838