Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/24436 
Year of Publication: 
2001
Series/Report no.: 
ZEW Discussion Papers No. 01-16
Publisher: 
Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW), Mannheim
Abstract: 
EMU driven interest rate convergence has led to a significant reduction of borrowing costs for some European governments in the second half of the nineties. The paper deals with the possible consequences for deficit behaviour. Although the impact of interest rates on deficits is a crucial element of the market discipline hypothesis it has widely been neglected in the literature. In the theoretical part, a standard political economic model of budgetary policy (Hettich-Winer) is adapted. It turns out that borrowing costs, measured as the interest-growth-differential, and the level of public debt should be important determinants for public deficits. The econometric part tests these predictions for a panel of OECD countries. The results indicate that there is indeed a significant impact of borrowing costs on the primary surplus. This impact is characterised by a robust asymmetry: Reactions in times of increasing borrowing costs are more pronounced than in times of relaxing conditions.
Subjects: 
market discipline
borrowing costs
EMU
public debt
government deficits
JEL: 
H62
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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