This paper describes the FMM-MTFF model, a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model developed to support the implementation of a Medium-Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF) in emerging market and ...developing economies. The model exhibits the following features. First, fiscal policy is defined in terms of multi-year fiscal plans, instead of restricting attention to univariate, single-period fiscal shocks. Second, the model temporarily deactivates the fiscal rule to avoid forcing fiscal policy to be mechanically countercyclical and sustainable. Third, the model is calibrated to match a three-sector, stylized version of a country’s input-output table, and finally, the model uses a chain-weighted procedure to measure GDP, a method consistent with what national account compilers do. The model is calibrated to Colombian and Peruvian data to illustrate the use of the model as a tool to quantify the scale of the fiscal challenges, to provide consistent medium-term macro fiscal projections and to assess the quantitative implications of past reforms and alternative fiscal policy plans on the economies, i.e., the typical questions of interest to an MTFF.
•My objective in this paper is to support the implementation of a Medium-Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF) in emerging market and developing economies.•This is achieved by proposing a DSGE model of a small open economy featuring a fiscal sector.•Fiscal policy is defined in terms of multiyear fiscal plans and fiscal rules, ensuring automatic countercyclical and sustainable behavior, are temporarily deactivated.•The model helps to quantitatively assess the main issues of interest to an MTFF.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Fiscal policy in Latin America has been guided primarily by short-term liquidity targets whose observance was taken as the main exponent of fiscal prudence, with attention focused almost exclusively ...on the levels of public debt and the cash deficit. Very little attention was paid to the effects of fiscal policy on growth and on macroeconomic volatility over the cycle. Important issues such as the composition of public expenditures (and its effects on growth), the ability of fiscal policy to stabilize cyclical fluctuations, and the currency composition of public debt were largely neglected. As a result, fiscal policy has often amplified cyclical volatility and dampened growth. Fiscal Policy, Stabilization, and Growth explores the conduct of fiscal policy in Latin America and its consequences for macroeconomic stability and long-term growth. In particular, the book highlights the procyclical and anti-investment biases embedded in the region's fiscal policies, explores their causes and macroeconomic consequences, and asesses their possible solutions.
This paper measures the size of automatic fiscal revenue stabilizers and evaluates their role in Latin America. It introduces a relatively rich tax structure into a dynamic, stochastic, multi-sector ...small open economy inhabited by rule-of-thumb consumers (who consume their wages and do not save or borrow) and Ricardian households to study the stabilizing properties of different parameters of the tax code. The economy faces multiple sources of business cycle fluctuations: (1) world capital market shocks; (2) world business cycle shocks; (3) terms of trade shocks; (4) government spending shocks; and (5) nontradable and (6) tradable sector technology innovations. Calibrating the model economy to a typical Latin American economy allows the evaluation of its ability to mimic the region's observed business cycle frequency properties and the assessment of the quantitative relationship between tax code parameters, business cycle forcing variables, and business cycle behavior. The model captures many of the salient features of Latin America's business cycle facts and finds that the degree of smoothing provided by the automatic revenue stabilizers-described by various properties of the tax system-is negligible. Simulation results seem to suggest an invariance property for middle-income countries: the amplitude of the business cycle is independent of the tax structure. And government size-measured by the GDP ratio of government spending-plays the role of an automatic stabilizer, but its smoothing effect is very weak.
For the evaluation of macroeconomic policies Colombian authorities rely heavily, if not exclusively, on the operational framework known as the Financial Programming Model developed by the ...International Monetary Fund in the 1950s. Based on this static framework, the formulation of fiscal policy in the country, just as in various Latin American countries, focuses primarily on fiscal deficit and gross debt targets. However, the type of fiscal policy advice derived from it is not useful for understanding the asset-creating nature and the inter-temporal tradeoffs involved in public investment decisions. The author develops a perfect foresight, dynamic small open economy model to provide an alternative framework for fiscal analysis and policy purposes. He shows that the two competing frameworks deliver differing paths for the expected behavior of the Colombian economy. He then uses the proposed framework to study the likely consequences of using public capital spending to achieve deficit targets since, in addition to an already high public debt, in the years ahead unfunded pension obligations will put enormous pressure on the Colombian government's solvency. The results indicate that public capital compression is costly in terms of foregone growth and very ineffective in achieving fiscal consolidation. The adoption of fiscal rules such as the golden rule or the permanent balance rule to shield public investment from undue budgetary pressures makes little sense in the presence of sustainability concerns. The author shows that a transitory capital spending increase is not self-amortizing in the long run; hence an extra peso of public capital spending deteriorates the inter-temporal fiscal position. A permanent increase largely pays for itself in terms of additional tax revenue but this effect is offset by a deterioration of infrastructure user charges, as long as public prices are determined competitively.
This paper proposes a dynamic,stochastic, multisector growth model which integrates the real business cycle literature and booming sector and Dutch Disease economics to analyze fluctuations, resource ...allocation and relative price changes in small open (developing) economies subject to terms of trade shocks. The model is consistent whith aggregate and sectorial cyclical behavior of this class of economies, and rationalizes as an efficient outcome the symptoms of Dutch Disease (temporary deindustrialization and appreciation of the real exchange rate) which are sometimes judged to be suboptimal responses and as the rationale for government intervention in developing countries. It is also found that commodity price stabilization policies do not significantly affect the cyclical pattern of fluctuations and that their welfare benefits are second orden.
This paper develops a model to study the design, characterization and dynamic implications of stabilization policies in a dynamic general equilibrium model of the business cycle for an economy ...tainted by the Dutch disease. The model incorporates a stabilization scheme for the producer price of an export crop in a three- sector RBC model. Stabilization funds have been very popular instruments in developing countries to deal with export price instability. This paper shows that such schemes cannot improve the functioning of the economy, notwithstanding the assumed suboptimality of private outcomes and the possibility of having welfare enhancing policies.
