The Sustainability of Fiscal Policy: New Answers to an Old Question

29 Pages Posted: 28 Dec 2006

See all articles by Olivier J. Blanchard

Olivier J. Blanchard

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER); Peterson Institute for International Economics

Jean-Claude Chouraqui

affiliation not provided to SSRN

Robert Hagemann

International Monetary Fund (IMF); National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

Nicola Sartor

University of Verona

Date Written: March 1991

Abstract

The early 1980s were a time of large budget deficits and increasing ratios of government debt to GNP for many of the OECD countries (Table 1), prompting concerns that the fiscal policies which led to such outcomes were not only unwise, but also unsustainable. Assessing wisdom is not easy, however, and surely not an exercise which can or should be reduced to the construction and examination of a few indicators. Assessing sustainability, on the other hand, is a much less ambitious task and one for which indicators are well suited. The purpose of this paper is to derive, construct and examine the behaviour of such indicators for the recent past and for the present.

JEL Classification: 02, 13

Suggested Citation

Blanchard, Olivier J. and Chouraqui, Jean-Claude and Hagemann, Robert and Sartor, Nicola, The Sustainability of Fiscal Policy: New Answers to an Old Question (March 1991). NBER Working Paper No. R1547, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=227461

Olivier J. Blanchard (Contact Author)

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) ( email )

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Peterson Institute for International Economics ( email )

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Washington, DC 20036
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Jean-Claude Chouraqui

affiliation not provided to SSRN

No Address Available

Robert Hagemann

International Monetary Fund (IMF) ( email )

700 19th Street NW
Washington, DC 20431
United States

National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)

1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States

Nicola Sartor

University of Verona ( email )

Dipartimento di Diritto dell'Economia via dell'Artigliere, 19
I-37129 Verona
Italy
+39 045 8028 508 (Phone)
+39 045 8028 519 (Fax)

HOME PAGE: http://www.univr.it/ivs/materie/econpubbl.htm

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