Fiscal spillover in emerging economies: Real versus financial channels

Abstract

Fiscal policy is an important tool for business cycle stabilization and has significant spillover through real and financial channels. This paper estimates the spillover of US fiscal policy shock in emerging economies which is distinct from US monetary policy spillover. We find that - similar to its effect in advanced economies as documented in the literature - the shock lowers both the nominal and real policy rates in emerging economies. Results suggest a disconnect between long-term and policy rates that leads to the steepening of the yield curve in emerging economies in the medium term due to the shock. Most of these effects of US government expenditure shock on the policy rate and the yield curve in emerging economies are direct effects (financial channel) and not indirectly driven by the effect of this shock on GDP growth and inflation (real channel). Contrary to its effect in the US, we find that this shock leads to a prolonged appreciation of real effective exchange rates in emerging economies, hurts their external competitiveness, and leads to a contraction in output in emerging economies. As expected, countries having higher exports and trade-to-GDP ratio experience a bigger decline in output.