Browsing by Author "Sousa, Ricardo M."
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- Assessing long-term fiscal development : evidence from PortugalPublication . Afonso, António; Sousa, Ricardo M.Drawing on quarterly data for Portugal, we use a Three-Stage Least Square method and a system of equations to recursively estimate two components of fiscal policy -responsiveness and persistence - and to infer about the sources of fiscal deterioration (improvement). The results suggest that: (i) government spending exhibits higher persistence than government revenue; and (ii) government revenue is more responsive to the business cycle than government spending.
- Assessing long-term fiscal developments : a new approachPublication . Afonso, António; Agnello, Luca; Furceri, Davide; Sousa, Ricardo M.We use a new approach to assess long-term fiscal developments. By analyzing the timevarying behaviour of the two components of government spending and revenue – responsiveness and persistence – we are able to infer about the sources of fiscal behaviour. Drawing on quarterly data we estimate recursively these components within a system of government revenue and spending equations using a Three-Stage Least Square method. In this way we track fiscal developments, i.e. possible fiscal deteriorations and/or improvements for eight European Union countries plus the US. Results suggest that positions have not significantly changed for Finland, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the US, whilst they have improved for Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands.
- Assessing long-term fiscal developments : a new approachPublication . Afonso, António; Agnello, Luca; Furceri, Davide; Sousa, Ricardo M.We use a new approach to assess long-term fiscal developments. By analyzing the time varying behaviour of the two components of government spending and revenue -responsiveness and persistence - we are able to infer about the sources of fiscal behaviour. Drawing on quarterly data we estimate recursively these components within a system of government revenue and spending equations using a Three-Stage Least Square method. In this way we track fiscal developments, i.e. possible fiscal deteriorations and/or improvements for eight European Union countries plus the US. Results suggest that positions have not significantly changed for Finland, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the US, whilst they have improved for Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands.
- Assessing Long-Term Fiscal Developments: a New ApproachPublication . Afonso, António; Agnello, Luca; Furceri, Davide; Sousa, Ricardo M.We use a new approach to assess long-term fiscal developments. By analyzing the time-varying behaviour of the two components of government spending and revenue -responsiveness and persistence - we are able to infer about the sources of fiscal behaviour. Drawing on quarterly data we estimate recursively these components within a system of government revenue and spending equations using a Three-Stage Least Square method. In this way we track fiscal developments, i.e. possible fiscal deteriorations and/or improvements for eight European Union countries plus the US. Results suggest that positions have not significantly changed for Finland, France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom and the US, whilst they have improved for Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands.
- Assessing long-term fiscal developments: A new approachPublication . Afonso, António; Agnello, Luca; Furceri, Davide; Sousa, Ricardo M.We use a new approach to assess long-term fiscal developments. By analyzing the time-varying behaviour of the two components of government spendingandrevenue–responsivenessandpersistence–, a feature not captured by automatic stabilisers, we are able to infer about the sources of fiscal deterioration (improvement). Drawing on quarterly data, we estimate recursively these components within a system of government revenue and spending equations using a Three-Stage Least Squaremethod for eight EuropeanUnion countries plus the US. The results suggest that significant changes in the fiscal stance (including those related to the current crisis) are reflected in the estimates of persistence and responsiveness.
- Consumption, wealth, stock and government bond returns : international evidencePublication . Afonso, António; Sousa, Ricardo M.In this paper, we show, from the consumer’s budget constraint, that the residuals of the trend relationship among consumption, aggregate wealth, and labour income should predict both stock returns and government bond yields. We use data for several OECD countries and find that when agents expect future stock returns to be higher, they will temporarily allow consumption to rise. Regarding government bond yields, when bonds are seen as a component of asset wealth, then investors react in the same way. If, however, the increase in the yields is perceived as signalling a future rise in taxes, then they will temporarily reduce their consumption.
- Consumption, wealth, stock and government bond returns: international evidencePublication . Afonso, António; Sousa, Ricardo M.In this paper, we show, from the consumer’s budget constraint, that the residuals of the trend relationship among consumption, aggregate wealth and labour income should predict both stock returns and government bond yields. We use data for several OECD countries and find that when agents expect future stock returns to be higher, they will temporarily allow consumption to rise. Regarding government bond yields, when bonds are seen as a component of asset wealth, then investors react in the same way. If, however, the increase in the yields is perceived as signalling a future rise in taxes, then they will temporarily reduce their consumption.
- Fiscal policy, housing and stock pricesPublication . Afonso, António; Sousa, Ricardo M.This paper investigates the link between fiscal policy shocks and movements in asset markets using a Fully Simultaneous System approach in a Bayesian framework. Building on the works of Blanchard and Perotti (2002), Leeper and Zha (2003), and Sims and Zha (1999, 2006), the empirical evidence for the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and Italy shows that it is important to explicitly consider the government debt dynamics when assessing the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy and its impact on asset markets. In addition, the results from a VAR counter-factual exercise suggest that: (i) fiscal policy shocks play a minor role in the asset markets of the U.S. and Germany; (ii) they substantially increase the variability of housing and stock prices in the U.K.; and (iii) government revenue shocks have apparently contributed to an increase of volatility in Italy.
- Fiscal policy, housing and stock pricesPublication . Afonso, António; Sousa, Ricardo M.This paper investigates the link between fiscal policy shocks and movements in asset markets using a Fully Simultaneous System approach in a Bayesian framework. Building on the works of Blanchard and Perotti (2002), Leeper and Zha (2003), and Sims and Zha (1999, 2006), the empirical evidence for the U.S., the U.K., Germany, and Italy shows that it is important to explicitly consider the government debt dynamics when assessing the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy and its impact on asset markets. In addition, the results from a VAR counter-factual exercise suggest that: (i) fiscal policy shocks play a minor role in the asset markets of the U.S. and Germany; (ii) they substantially increase the variability of housing and stock prices in the U.K..; and (iii) government revenue shocks have apparently contributed to an increase of volatility in Italy.
- Fiscal regime shifts in PortugalPublication . Afonso, António; Claeys, Peter; Sousa, Ricardo M.We estimate changes in fiscal policy regimes in Portugal with a Markov Switching regression of fiscal policy rules for the period 1978– 2007, using a new dataset of fiscal quarterly series. We find evidence of a deficit bias, while repeated reversals of taxes making the budget procyclical. Economic booms have typically been used to relax tax pressure, especially during elections. One-off measures have been preferred over structural ones to contain the deficit during economic crises. The EU fiscal framework prompted temporary consolidation, but did not permanently change the budgeting process.