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Fiscal policy

  • Entrepreneurship, Inequality, and Taxation

    Staff Working Paper 2002-14 Césaire Meh
    This paper confirms the conjecture that the evaluation of tax policy leads to very different conclusions once the role of entrepreneurs is considered. Contrary to previous literature, the author finds that switching from a progressive to a proportional income tax system has a negligible effect on wealth inequality in the United States.
    Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Fiscal policy JEL Code(s): D, D3, D31, E, E6, E62, H, H2, H20, H23
  • Dynamic Employment and Hours Effects of Government Spending Shocks

    Staff Working Paper 1999-1 Mingwei Yuan, Wenli Li
    In this paper, we analyze the dynamic behaviour of employment and hours worked per worker in a stochastic general equilibrium model with a matching mechanism between vacancies and unemployed workers. The model is estimated for the United States using the Generalized Methods of Moments (GMM) estimation technique. An increase in government spending raises hours worked […]
    Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E32, E6, E62, J, J6, J64
  • Can a Matching Model Explain the Long-Run Increase in Canada's Unemployment Rate?

    Staff Working Paper 1998-19 Andreas Hornstein, Mingwei Yuan
    The authors construct a simple general equilibrium model of unemployment and calibrate it to the Canadian economy. Job creation and destruction are endogenous. In this model, they consider several potential factors that could contribute to the long-run increase in the Canadian unempoloyment rate: a more generous unemployment insurance system, higher layoff costs, higher discretionary taxes, […]
    Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Fiscal policy, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E2, E6, J, J4
  • Tendance des dépenses publiques et de l'inflation et évolution comparative du taux de chômage au Canada et aux États-Unis

    Staff Working Paper 1998-3 Pierre St-Amant, David Tessier
    The authors' purpose in this paper is to isolate the respective contributions of budgetary and monetary policy in Canada and the United States to the behaviour of unemployment rates in the two countries. Their method consists of estimating VAR models and using long-term identification restrictions to perform a structural analysis. Budgetary policy shocks are defined […]
    Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy JEL Code(s): E, E6
  • August 14, 1997

    The fiscal impact of privatization in Canada

    Privatization—the transfer of activities from the public to the private sector—gained international prominence in the 1980s because of the need to reduce budget deficits and growing concerns about the efficiency of state-owned enterprises and government bureaucracies. This article examines privatization in Canada and its effect on governments' fiscal positions. Privatization has generally been less rapid and extensive in Canada than elsewhere, partly because of the comparatively moderate size of our public sector. Nevertheless, federal, provincial, and municipal governments have increasingly reduced their direct involvement in the Canadian economy by selling Crown corporations, contracting with private firms to deliver public services, and transferring the development of public infrastructure projects to the private sector. The fiscal impact of privatizing Crown corporations varies with such factors as the profitability of the enterprise, the size of the government's initial investment, and past write-downs. In general, when privatizations are part of a broader effort to improve public finances, they can contribute to fiscal consolidation by reducing budgetary requirements and debt levels. When services and infrastructure projects are privatized, it is expected that more efficient private sector management will reduce government expenditures. For example, a private consortium may be better able to manage the financial risks involved in building an infrastructure facility, such as cost overruns or the withdrawal of contractors, than the public sector. The key to raising efficiency and lowering costs, however, is competition, not privatization per se. Therefore, the cost savings arising from the privatization of services or public works depend crucially on the terms of the contract. Overall, when structured to improve economic efficiency, privatization is likely to enhance the economy's performance, thereby producing long-term economic and budgetary gains.
  • The Effects of Budget Rules on Fiscal Performance and Macroeconomic Stabilization

    Staff Working Paper 1997-15 Jonathan Millar
    Budget rules can be defined as legislated or constitutional constraints on government deficits, taxes, expenditures, or debt. This paper reviews the budget rules recently legislated in six of Canada's provinces and both of its territories, as well as budget rules in other OECD countries.
    Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy JEL Code(s): E, E6, E62, H, H3, H6, H61
  • L'endettement du Canada et ses effets sur les taux d'intérêt réels de long terme

    Staff Working Paper 1996-14 Jean-François Fillion
    This paper examines the effects that Canada's indebtedness has on Canadian real long-term interest rates, using the vector error-correction model (VECM). Our results show that there is a strongly cointegrated relationship between real interest rates in Canada, U.S. real interest rates, and Canadian public and external debt ratios.
    Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Interest rates JEL Code(s): E, E4, E43, F, F3, F30, H, H6, H60
  • May 10, 1996

    Financing activities of provincial governments and their enterprises

    This article examines the changes that have occurred in the composition of funds raised by provincial borrowers during the 1990s. Higher financing requirements, coupled with the declining availability of funds from non-market sources such as the Canada Pension Plan, led provincial governments and their Crown corporations to broaden and to diversify their debt management programs. In particular, provincial borrowers expanded their presence in foreign bond markets, increased their issuance of floating-rate debt, and incorporated a wide variety of innovative debt instruments into their borrowing programs in order to minimize their borrowing costs and to manage the risks associated with the issuing of debt. As a result, the composition of funds raised by provincial borrowers during the 1990s differed markedly from that of the previous decade: between 1990 and 1995, provincial borrowing requirements were met almost entirely through the issuance of marketable debt, and net new foreign currency debt issues averaged nearly 50 per cent of funds raised, whereas between 1980 and 1989, non-market sources provided close to 30 per cent of funds raised, and net new foreign currency debt issues provided less than 20 per cent.
  • Government Debt and Deficits In Canada: A Macro Simulation Analysis

    Staff Working Paper 1995-4 Tiff Macklem, David Rose, Robert Tetlow
    This paper examines the macroeconomic implications of rising government debt in Canada and the short-run costs and long-run benefits of stemming the rise. The discussion begins with an evaluation of the long-run consequences of increasing government indebtedness, first based on the simple arithmetic of the government's long-run budget constraint, and then based on simulations of […]
    Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy
  • December 8, 1994

    Some macroeconomic implications of rising levels of government debt

    The level of government debt in Canada relative to gross domestic product has risen steadily since the mid-1970s. Canada has not been alone in experiencing rising government indebtedness, but in comparison to other countries, Canada's debt load is now distinctly on the high side. The author reviews some of the effects of rising government debt levels on macroeconomic performance and provides some calculations aimed at illustrating their possible long-run impact on the Canadian economy. His analysis, which is based on a model of the Canadian economy used at the Bank of Canada, suggests that higher levels of government debt reduce both the level of output and the share of output that is available for domestic consumption. The central policy implication is that there are substantial benefits to halting the rise in government debt and thus preventing further erosion of consumption opportunities.
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