Revisiting the Twin Deficit Hypothesis in presence of exchange rate nonlinearities: evidence from India using nonlinear ARDL model

Abstract

PurposeThis paper is an attempt to re-examine the validity of the Twin Deficit Hypothesis in the Indian economy, which is characterised by mounting inequality and liquidity constraints. The authors augment the econometric analysis with two important mediating variables, exchange rate and trade openness, to analyse their impact on current account deficit.Design/methodology/approachThe authors have used a ground-breaking asymmetric cointegration technique proposed by Shin et al. (2014) to investigate the short-run and long-run asymmetric nexus between gross fiscal deficit and current account deficit. In addition, the study has used asymmetric dynamic multipliers to see the dynamics of nonlinear adjustment from disequilibrium in the short run to equilibrium in the long run. The study has also used generalised impulse response functions to check the robustness of our cointegration results.FindingsUsing annual time series data from 1970 to 2018, the empirical exercise validates the presence of asymmetries in the Twin Deficit Hypothesis for the Indian economy. This study's robust findings demonstrate that the two deficits are asymmetrically related in the long run. The authors also found that exchange rate asymmetrically affects current account deficit thus validating the asymmetric J-curve phenomenon. From the causality analysis, the authors infer that there is a weak unidirectional causality running from fiscal deficit to current account deficit.Research limitations/implicationsFiscal deficit may cause current account deficit via changes in other macroeconomic variables that were not taken care of in this study. Therefore, the estimation techniques used in the present study might suffer from the issue of omitted-variable bias. Further research should include other macroeconomic variables where the twin deficit nexus is also influenced by other relevant variables. This will help in disentangling the indirect transmissions by which fiscal deficit translates into current account deficit.Practical implicationsThe results from our econometric exercise strongly suggest that the twin deficits are asymmetrically related. From a policy perspective, the asymmetric twin deficit nexus offers strong policy implications for the development of policies that are flexible enough to respond to shifts in internal and external sector dynamics. While framing the mechanism of fiscal prudence, policymakers in emerging countries like India must take into account the regime-changing behaviour of twin deficits.Originality/valueThe present paper is a significant contribution to the existing body of literature by being the first study in India which has analysed the Twin Deficits phenomenon in a nonlinear framework with the incorporation of asymmetric exchange rate dynamics in the model.