Documents Bloch, Debra 3 results

"The sharp rise in debt experienced by most OECD countries raises questions about debt indicators and the prudent government debt level countries should target. It also raises questions about the fiscal frameworks needed to reach the prudent debt level and to accommodate cyclical fluctuations along the convergence path towards a prudent debt target. The objective of this paper is to define long-run prudent debt targets for OECD countries and country-specific fiscal rules. The paper presents a comprehensive analysis of government liabilities and assets and formulates recommendations for debt indicators. It also reviews the different linkages between government debt and the economic activity. The lessons from these analyses are combined with an assessment of the uncertainties surrounding the development of macroeconomic variables to define a prudent debt target. Different fiscal rules are compared with regard their impact on fiscal discipline and the risk of recession for country-specific fiscal rules recommendations."

"Social institutions face many challenges. The recent economic crisis has provided a stress test as it has left a legacy of high unemployment and high government debt in many countries. It also lowered potential output and thus the revenue base for social protection schemes. At the same time, ageing and other secular trends raise long-term sustainability issues. The design of social institutions determines their capacity to deal with shocks and trend changes and the way risks are shared between the institutions and their stakeholders. They also circumscribe the scope for automatic or discretionary adjustments, when trade-offs between sustainability, adequacy and efficiency arise. This report examines the sustainability of social institutions and their ability to absorb and cope with short-term shocks and longer-term trends by providing risk sharing and expenditure smoothing, focusing on pension, health care and unemployment insurance schemes."

"New indicators measuring the effects of public spending on inclusive growth have been constructed using recent empirical work by Fournier and Johansson (2016) and a recent public finance dataset (Bloch et al., 2016). A first set of indicators combines information on the mix of public spending. Each spending item share is multiplied with an estimated coefficient from growth and inequality equations to build both a growth and an income distribution component, which is then summed up to an aggregate inclusive growth indicator. The spending mix analysis cannot, however, measure the effectiveness of public spending within individual spending items, which is difficult to observe in a comparable manner across countries. A second set of indicators attempts to at least partly overcome this limitation by including information on the size and perceived effectiveness of governments. The average of the spending mix indicator and the size and effectiveness indicator provides an indicative overall indicator on the effects of public spending on inclusive growth. The analysis suggests that countries with a counter-cyclical fiscal stance typically have a public spending structure that is more supportive of inclusive growth. There is also a striking link between the growth component of the public spending mix indicator and the output gap: the capacity of the public finances to support inclusive growth deteriorated markedly in the countries hardest hit during the recent crisis."