Fiscal Consolidation and Firm Growth in Developing Countries: Evidence from Firm-Level Data

IF 1.8 3区经济学 Q3 DEVELOPMENT STUDIES

Journal of Development Studies Pub Date : 2023-10-11 DOI:10.1080/00220388.2023.2265523

Hildebrando Pahula, Sailesh Tanna, Glauco De Vita

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Abstract

Despite a longstanding debate around the economic effects of fiscal consolidation policies, relatively few studies have focused on developing countries, and even fewer have paid attention to the growth implications at firm level. Using a unique narrative dataset based on contemporaneous policy documents to identify changes in fiscal policy aimed at reducing the accumulation of public debt, we investigate the effects of fiscal consolidation on the growth of 118,279 firms in 98 developing countries from 2006 to 2018. The results indicate that a one percentage point increase in fiscal consolidation as a share of GDP leads, on average, to a decline in firm growth of 3.97 percentage points. This decline is reduced when consolidation is large. We also find that debt-driven consolidation based on tax hikes is more contractionary than that based on spending cuts, though this contractionary effect is mitigated when spending cuts exceed 1.5 percent of GDP. While the negative effect of fiscal consolidation on firm performance is more pronounced in large and non-exporting firms, the effect is not statistically important in low-debt-risk developing countries.

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发展中国家的财政整顿与企业增长:来自企业层面数据的证据

尽管长期以来围绕财政整顿政策的经济影响存在争议，但关注发展中国家的研究相对较少，关注企业层面增长影响的研究就更少了。我们使用基于同期政策文件的独特叙事数据集来确定旨在减少公共债务积累的财政政策变化，研究了2006年至2018年98个发展中国家118,279家企业的财政整顿对其增长的影响。研究结果表明，财政整顿占GDP的比例每增加1个百分点，平均而言，企业增长率就会下降3.97个百分点。当合并规模较大时，这种下降会减少。我们还发现，以增税为基础的债务驱动型整顿比以削减支出为基础的整顿更具收缩性，尽管当削减支出超过GDP的1.5%时，这种收缩效应会得到缓解。虽然财政整顿对企业业绩的负面影响在大型和非出口企业中更为明显，但在低债务风险的发展中国家，这种影响在统计上并不重要。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Development Studies Multiple-

CiteScore

5.20

自引率

3.40%

发文量

138

期刊介绍： The Journal of Development Studies was the first and is one of the best known international journals in the area of development studies. Since its foundation in 1964, it has published many seminal articles on development and opened up new areas of debate. Priority is given to papers which are: • relevant to important current research in development policy, theory and analysis • make a novel and significant contribution to the field • provide critical tests, based on empirical work, of alternative theories, perspectives or schools of thought We invite articles that are interdisciplinary or focused on particular disciplines (e.g. economics, politics, geography, sociology or anthropology), with an expectation that all work is accessible to readers across the social sciences. The editors also welcome surveys of the literature in important fields of development policy. All research articles in this journal undergo rigorous peer review, based on initial editor screening and anonymous peer review. Given the high level of submissions, a majority of submissions are rejected quickly with reasons.