Signaling Fiscal Regime Sustainability
F. Drudi and
Alessandro Prati
Working Papers from Banca Italia - Servizio di Studi
Abstract:
This paper proposes a signaling model of fiscal stabilizations that offers a new perspective on why governments deviate from optimal tax smoothing. In our model, dependable -but not fully credible- governments have an incentive to tighten the fiscal regime when the signaling effect on credit ratings is larger (that is, when a sufficiently large stock debt has been accumulated). At this point, they may deviate from tax smoothing in order to avoid being mimicked by weak governments. We show that a testable prediction of our model is that primary balances and debt stocks are complementary inputs in the credit rating function and we sucessfully test it on Irish , Belgian, and Danish data from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.
Keywords: FISCAL POLICY; TAX POLICY; GOVERNMENT POLICY (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E62 H2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 74 pages
Date: 1998
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)
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Related works:
Journal Article: Signaling fiscal regime sustainability (2000) 
Working Paper: Signaling Fiscal Regime Sustainability (1999) 
Working Paper: Signaling Fiscal Regime Sustainability (1998) 
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fth:banita:335
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