Do fiscal rules breed inequality? First evidence for the EU

IF 0.6 Q3 Economics, Econometrics and Finance

Economics Bulletin Pub Date : 2019-06-15 DOI:10.3929/ETHZ-B-000396308

Jochen Hartwig, J. Sturm

引用次数: 3

Abstract

Research into the effects of fiscal rules has so far focused on their budgetary impact. Possible unwanted side effects of having fiscal rules have gone largely unexplored. This is unfortunate since such side effects are highly probable. For instance, governments attempting to abide by a fiscal rule might curb social expenditure; and this could lead to a higher level of income inequality. We test this hypothesis with data from the Standardized World Income Inequality Database (SWIID) and a new set of fiscal rules dummy variables for EU countries. We find that after 'hard' rules, i.e. rules that are reinforced by sanctions and/or automatic correction mechanisms, have been in place for several years, the amount of redistribution in a country declines, leading to an increase in inequality based on disposable income measures.

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财政规则会滋生不平等吗?这是欧盟的第一个证据

迄今为止，对财政规则影响的研究主要集中在它们对预算的影响上。制定财政规则可能产生的不良副作用在很大程度上尚未得到探讨。这是不幸的，因为这种副作用是非常可能的。例如，试图遵守财政规则的政府可能会抑制社会支出;这可能会导致更严重的收入不平等。我们用标准化世界收入不平等数据库(SWIID)的数据和一套新的欧盟国家财政规则虚拟变量来检验这一假设。我们发现，在“硬”规则(即通过制裁和/或自动纠正机制加强的规则)实施数年后，一个国家的再分配数量下降，导致基于可支配收入衡量的不平等加剧。

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

Economics Bulletin ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

1.60

自引率

0.00%

发文量

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