Fiscal consolidation and asymmetric macroeconomic effects: Evidence from Sub-Saharan African countries

IF 4.2 2区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Economic Modelling Pub Date : 2025-02-28 DOI:10.1016/j.econmod.2025.107052

Ruth Badru , Andrea Calef , Ayobami E. Ilori , Oluwasola E. Omoju

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Abstract

This paper examines the macroeconomic effects of fiscal consolidation in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), addressing the region's rising debt levels and constrained fiscal space. Existing literature has explored fiscal policy's cyclical behaviour and structural constraints; however, gaps remain in understanding the heterogeneous effects of consolidation across debt levels, economic phases, and country classifications. Using the local projection approach on annual data from 1995 to 2022 for a panel of 37 SSA countries, we find that fiscal consolidation has an expansionary effect on output while reducing the debt-to-GDP ratio, with stronger impacts in highly indebted, resource-rich, and institutionally weak economies. Furthermore, expenditure-based adjustments outperform revenue-based measures, particularly during recessions, where effects are deep but short-lived, compared to milder but persistent impacts during expansions. These findings offer new insights into how debt levels and resource endowments shape fiscal outcomes, guiding targeted, context-sensitive strategies to balance growth and debt sustainability in SSA.

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来源期刊

Economic Modelling ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

8.00

自引率

10.60%

发文量

295

期刊介绍： Economic Modelling fills a major gap in the economics literature, providing a single source of both theoretical and applied papers on economic modelling. The journal prime objective is to provide an international review of the state-of-the-art in economic modelling. Economic Modelling publishes the complete versions of many large-scale models of industrially advanced economies which have been developed for policy analysis. Examples are the Bank of England Model and the US Federal Reserve Board Model which had hitherto been unpublished. As individual models are revised and updated, the journal publishes subsequent papers dealing with these revisions, so keeping its readers as up to date as possible.