The Fiscal Stimulus of 2009-10: Trade Openness, Fiscal Space and Exchange Rate Adjustment

Main author: Aizenman, Joshua
Other authors: Jinjarak, Yothin
Format: Journal Article           
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id eprints-12134
recordtype eprints
institution SOAS, University of London
collection SOAS Research Online
language English
language_search English
description This paper studies the cross-country variation of the fiscal stimulus and the exchange rate adjustment propagated by the global crisis of 2008-9, indentifying the role of economic structure in accounting for the heterogeneity of response. We find that greater de facto fiscal space prior to the global crisis and lower trade openness were associated with a higher fiscal stimulus/GDP during 2009-2010 (where the de facto fiscal space is the inverse of the average tax-years it would take to repay the public debt). Lowering the 2006 public debt/average tax base from the level of low-income countries (5.94) down to the average level of the Euro minus the Euro-area peripheral countries (1.97), was associated with a larger crisis stimulus in 2009-11 of 2.78 GDP percentage points. Joint estimation of fiscal stimuli and exchange rate depreciations indicates that higher trade openness was associated with a smaller fiscal stimulus and a higher depreciation rate during the crisis. Overall, the results are in line with the predictions of the neo-Keynesian open-economy model.
format Journal Article
author Aizenman, Joshua
author_facet Aizenman, Joshua
Jinjarak, Yothin
authorStr Aizenman, Joshua
author_letter Aizenman, Joshua
author2 Jinjarak, Yothin
author2Str Jinjarak, Yothin
title The Fiscal Stimulus of 2009-10: Trade Openness, Fiscal Space and Exchange Rate Adjustment
publisher University of Chicago Press
publishDate 2012
url https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/12134/