Do Governments React to Public Debt Accumulation? A Cross-Country Analysis

Abstract

Do governments adjust budgetary policy to rising public debt, precluding fiscal unsustainability? Using budget data for 52 industrial and emerging economies since 1990, we apply panel methods accounting for cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneous fiscal conduct. We find that a primary-balance rule with tax-smoothing motives and responsiveness to debt has robust explanatory power in describing fiscal behavior. Controlling for temporary output, temporary spending, and the current account balance, a 10-percentage-point increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio raises the long-run primary surplus-to-GDP ratio by 0.5 percentage points on average. Corrective adjustments hold across high- and low-debt countries and across industrial and emerging economies. Our results imply many governments pursue Ricardian policy designs, avoiding Ponzi-type financing.