Government debt, European Institutions and fiscal rules: a synthetic control approach

Robert Kraemer and Jonne Lehtimäki
Additional contact information
Robert Kraemer: European Stability Mechanism
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Robert Krämer

International Tax and Public Finance, 2024, vol. 31, issue 4, No 8, 1112-1157

Abstract: Abstract Public debt and its development are key questions of public sector economics and fiscal policy. This paper uses the Synthetic Control Method to study how different large-scale steps of European integration and the establishment of the EU fiscal framework have affected government debt in EU Member States. The results point to a notable debt-restricting effect of EU membership and the introduction of the Stability and Growth Pact for a large majority of the studied country groupings as well as for individual countries. Outside of a few individual countries, the actual government debt levels are substantially lower than in the synthetic alternatives.

Keywords: European union; Stability and growth pact; European fiscal framework; Fiscal rules; Government debt; International fiscal issues (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E62 H6 H63 H87 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10797-023-09791-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:itaxpf:v:31:y:2024:i:4:d:10.1007_s10797-023-09791-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/10797/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10797-023-09791-z

Access Statistics for this article

International Tax and Public Finance is currently edited by Ronald B. Davies and Kimberly Scharf

More articles in International Tax and Public Finance from Springer, International Institute of Public Finance Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().