A Balance-Sheet Approach to Fiscal Sustainability

Eduardo Levy Yeyati and Federico Sturzenegger

No 150, CID Working Papers from Center for International Development at Harvard University

Abstract: Recent empirical research on emerging markets debt, currency crises and fiscal sustainability has placed a significant focus on the role of currency mismatches with the emphasis placed on the currency composition of explicit government liabilities. The key insight of this paper is that these liabilities, while relevant, usually represent a small share of actual government liabilities: indeed, as an indicator of fiscal solvency, they are relatively uninformative – and possibly misleading – if not matched with the remaining liabilities (promises of wage and pension payments among others) and the asset side of the government’s balance sheet: financial and real government assets as well as the present value of future tax collection. These non-debt liabilities and assets may be affected by changes in the real exchange rate in a way that dwarfs the effect on the explicit liabilities which are typically the focus of attention. With this in mind, this paper proposes a balance-sheet approach that, as illustrated by the practical applications included here, may radically alter the results from traditional sustainability evaluations – and, more generally, the perception of a country’s fiscal vulnerability

Keywords: Assets; Balance-Sheet Approach; Currency; Debt; Emerging Markets; Fiscal Sustainability; Liabilities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H20 H60 H61 P43 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-10
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.hks.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/ce ... rking-papers/150.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: A balance‐sheet approach to fiscal sustainability (2023)
Working Paper: A balance-sheet approach to fiscal sustainability (2021)
Working Paper: A Balance-Sheet Approach to Fiscal Sustainability (2021)
Working Paper: A Balance-Sheet Approach to Fiscal Sustainability (2007)
Working Paper: A Balance-Sheet Approach to Fiscal Sustainability (2007)
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:cid:wpfacu:150

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CID Working Papers from Center for International Development at Harvard University 79 John F. Kennedy Street. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chuck McKenney ().