MCW Newest and Final PDF
MCW Newest and Final PDF
MCW Newest and Final PDF
The topic of fiscal policy is important as It is used commonly as a response policy to big
economic shocks in the world to improve economic conditions during different phases of
the business cycle, such as in a recession; the type of fiscal policy employed will then
have long term effects on the economy and could make the economy come out or stay in
the recession. Furthermore, fiscal policy can have different effects on the current account
and trade; it can cause a twin deficit where a fiscal deficit leads to a current account deficit
or it can cause a twin divergence where a fiscal deficit leads to a current account surplus.
This was a key findings of standard theory and simple accounting according to Forni and
According to standard theory, the following mechanism is how a twin deficit occurs: an
expansionary fiscal policy through more government spending (G) would increase
aggregate domestic demand as AD= C+I+g+(x-m). This would increase the demand for
domestic currency/money shifting the money demand (IS) curve to the right. This would
cause an increase in the interest rate. This increase in interest rate would cause a
domestic currency appreciation. This is because domestic bonds will now have a higher
return and therefore higher demand for domestic currency in international capital markets.
Therefore, the current account would deteriorate as exports are now cheaper and imports
are dearer and trade would be affected negatively, and a twin deficit is reached.
However there is an argument based on historical data evidence that fiscal expansion
most often leads to an improvement of the current account (twin divergence). This was
one of the key findings in the Forni and Gambetti paper, 2016 and Kim and Roubini paper,
2006. Many papers such as Sachs, 1982 and Baxter, 1995, mention that this occurs due to
mechanisms which cause a depreciation of the real exchange rate (exchange rate puzzle)
key findings of the Corsetti et al paper where there is discussion related to Kim and
Roubini, 2003 paper. One of these factors is regarding to how open an economy is.
‘Openness’ of economy is defined by how freely a country can trade with other countries
with minimal restrictions. The second factor relates to the persistence of the fiscal policy
shock.
Most of these effects on the current account depend on what effect fiscal policy has on the
real exchange rate; this uncertainty is named the exchange rate puzzle. Forni and
Gambetti, 2016 and Kim and Roubini, 2008 have findings from the paper of Corsetti et al,
2012 and Frenkel, 1996, respectively, which imply that this could be due to habits of the
government to reduce spending and increase taxes following a fiscal expansion. Therefore
eventually causing a reduction in the prolonged real interest rate, leading to a fall in the
This exchange rate puzzle, which is key to account for when measuring effects of fiscal
policy on the current account; may be due to certain econometric issues. One of them
includes the problem of non-invertibility due to fiscal expectation (key finding of Yang, 2008
in Forni and Gambetti paper). The non invertible problem arises when the properties of
VAR predictions cannot account for structural shocks and are misrepresentative of the
impacts of a particular change in circumstance we are focusing on (in this case it’s
Impacts and their characteristics on the exchange rate depend on the type of fiscal
expectations of agents (key finding of Ramey, 2016) fiscal expectations are split into two
categories which have their unique econometric contributions towards the exchange rate
puzzle. There are ‘news’ shocks which have immediate effect on the assumptions of
agents but change government spending in the future. And there are ‘surprise’ shocks that
the current account and their key findings on the theoretical and empirical implications for
the effects on the current account. This will be done by analysing econometric
with this, we will discuss the potential use of additional econometric techniques which can
solve the exchange rate puzzle. Furthermore, I shall discuss empirical results using
impulse response functions based on economic theory and the policy implications from
these results.
THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS
In the Introduction there was brief mentioning of ways a twin divergence could occur. The
full theory explanations of them will now be covered. In Kim and Roubini, 2008, a fiscal
improvement in the current account in the following way: private savings could increase as
people realise that running a fiscal deficit where the government spends more than it
receives in tax revenue will cause an increase in public debt. Therefore people think that
there will be higher taxes in the future, so they save more now to pay this off (Corsetti et
al, 2006). Due to the fact that current account=savings-investment, more savings would
lead to a current account improvement. More saving and less spending in the economy
decreases the demand for domestic currency, reducing its value (Kim and Roubini, 2008).
This would lead to a depreciation of real exchange rate, meaning less foreign currency is
needed to obtain the same amount of domestic currency as domestic currency is now
weaker. The weakening of the exchange rate due to fiscal expansion is called the
depreciation puzzle. Domestic exports would now be relatively cheaper and net value of
money demand (IS curve to the left), reducing interest rates, leading to domestic bonds
having lower return leading to lower demand in international capital markets leading to a
exports are now cheaper and imports are dearer. Also, when government spending
increases aggregate domestic demand would increase, increasing money demand and
therefore interest rates; this would then decrease investment. Decrease in investment
would improve the current account due to the equation mentioned above (ca=s-I).
The other way a twin divergence arises mentioned in the literature is through the following:
a fiscal expansion which causes a rise in the exchange rate (and therefore a current
account degradation) will eventually cause the government to go into a relative fiscal
reduce the domestic aggregate demand in the economy and therefore a decrease in
money demand causing a reduction in the prolonged real interest rate; causing a fall in the
exchange rate (and therefore a current account improvement) (Corsetti et al, 2012).
There are a few theoretical approaches when explaining why twin deficits occur. The first
one is the traditional Mundell-Fleming Model approach. In Corsetti and Muller, 2016, this
approach implies that a rise in government spending causes a rise in aggregate demand in
the economy (as ad=c+I+g+(x-m)), This would increase the demand for domestic
currency/money shifting the money demand (IS) curve to the right. This would cause an
increase in the nominal interest rate. This increase in interest rate would cause a domestic
currency appreciation. This is because domestic bonds will now have a higher return and
means that a foreign country would need more currency to obtain the same amount of
domestic currency, implying for the domestic country, exports would be dearer. This would
decrease the domestic country’s export demand and therefore decrease their export sales.
Since the current account is equal to net value of exports - net value of imports, due to the
value of exports decreasing, the current account would deteriorate and trade would be
On the other hand, it was also argued that the initial rise in interest rate would eventually
cause a better state of the current account (CA=S-I) through a decrease in investment
levels. But it was gathered that the extent of this reduction in investment would not be
enough to counteract the effect of appreciation of real exchange rate on the current
account.
The second approach is the intertemporal one. In Corsetti et al, 2006, this approach
implies the following: with a perpetual fiscal expansion;the initial fiscal and budget deficit
no change to the state of the trade balance or current account. Private savings increase
due to higher expected future govt debt, providing expectations to household that future
A Temporary rise in government spending will cause a twin deficit. The short lived nature of
this increase means that future expaevtaions of rises in taxes are now diminished.
Therefore private households’ savings undergo a minimal impact, and therefore have little
to none effect on the current account. Therefore the only impact on the current account
and trade balance will be due to the budget deficit;with this impact being a negative one.
In the Ahmed 1986 literature, it accounts for effects when there is a relatively big impact on
spending, present value of taxes will increase causing a reduction in household income.
Less income would imply less leisure consumption and more labour supply. If we take
capital and labour as being complementary to each other in nature; marginal product of
capital will rise. This would cause a worsening of the current account due to more
investment due to bigger return on investment for domestic country due to higher MPK
These two approaches mentioned above miss out effects on investment from imports
being cheaper and exports being dearer. With regards to impacts of changes in
To evaluate the significance of these spillover impacts, a discussion of what factors are
The first factor is about how open the economy is. With an open economy with very good
capital mobility a twin deficit is more likely to occur. This is because when government
spending increases, domestic demand will rise causing money demand, the IS curve to
shift right. This will have affect interest rates in a fairly negligible way but with money
demand increasing, value of domestic currency will rise, causing an appreciation. This
causes domestic exports prices to rise and import prices to fall. Therefore investment
returns will rise (as cost of production falls due to lower import prices) meaning a higher
level of investment. Also, these dearer exports have a high probability of getting imported
by other countries, therefore the fiscal expansion would’ve caused an overall increase in
the return of investment. These factors would cause a current account deficit (ca=s-I)
The second factor relates to the persistence of the fiscal policy shock. This factor can have
a strong impact on whether a twin deficit or divergence occurs due to its unconsidered
effect that a rise in the real exchange rate has on investment choice and therefore whether
which (concentrated on investment goods) causes export prices to rise relative to import
prices. These exports have a high probability of getting imported by other countries,
therefore the fiscal expansion would’ve caused an overall increase in the return of
investment and therefore the extent of investment due to the appreciation of real exchange
rate. Also, there is more investment because imports are now cheaper, reducing cost of
production. Hence, because of the high potential impact on investment; a strong effect on
the current account is likely, and therefore the long or short term nature of the fiscal shock
However, a persistent government spending increase could also cause a twin divergence
in the following way: if households know that the shock is permanent, they will know that
this budget deficit will soon be funded through higher future taxes. Therefore to
compensate for these higher taxes, households will reduce their consumption, lowering
domestic currency demand, causing the real exchange rate to depreciate, leading to a
The real exchange rate and therefore whether a twin deficit occurs is also affected by
output level changes. An output shock where there’s an increase in supply will increase
gdp levels (as SRAS curve shifts right) and therefore national income rises, causing higher
demand and consumption of goods and services domestically. The extent of this increase
in consumption is likely to be higher than the increase in supply levels. This would mean a
rise in exchange rate. In the long term, demand and supply will have to be of the same
level, therefore the previous appreciation of the real exchange rate will be no longer and a
depreciation if the real exchange rate will take place due to the supply rise in long term
ECONOMETRIC ISSUES
This exchange rate puzzle, which is key to account for when measuring effects on the
current account; may be due to certain econometric issues. One of them includes the
problem of non-invertibility due to fiscal expectation. The non invertible problem arises
when the properties of VAR predictions cannot account for structural shocks and are
misrepresentative of the impacts of a particular change in circumstance we are focusing
on (in this case it’s government spending changes). Whether there is an appreciation or
spending. Fiscal expectations reduce the certainty, clarity and direction of the effects of
government spending due to its effect on the efficiency of VAR analysis and compatibility
with it; With fiscal anticipation it is likely that VAR will produce wrong/inaccurate results
because VAR will not have adequate/enough data and therefore producing a non-
invertability problem with variables included. With no perfect foresight, there will be omitted
variable bias where the expectations will be in the error term and therefore will be
Impacts and their characteristics on the exchange rate depend on the type of these fiscal
expectations of agents. Fiscal expectations are split into two categories which have their
unique econometric contributions towards the exchange rate puzzle. There are ‘news’
shocks which are shocks which are expected and have immediate effect on the
assumptions of agents but change government spending in the future. And there are
‘surprise’ shocks that are not expected and change government spending quickly while
anticipations are only affected when the change in spending is seen; the behaviour of the
exchange rate is in accordance with the expected government spending change after the
shock.
if these two particular assumptions of ‘news’ and ‘surprise’ shocks are not individually
respected and not given their own unique econometric rights; the exchange rate puzzle will
increase in its extent and will only be further away from being solved.
For example in an open economy VAR analysis, a surprise shock which includes
government spending increasing will cause the exchange rate puzzle. This is because,
due to the nature of the surprise shock, federal spending will increase straight away, but
then it will fall to lower level to what it initially was after a couple of years. This reduction in
government spending will cause a fall in the exchange rate through and enhance the
exchange rate puzzle through a fall in interest rate. (Forni and Gambetti, 2016).
Regarding the way the exchange rate puzzle could be solved, one way is having the
presence of news shocks in open economy VAR. When people expect a positive but
temporary news shock about government spending, they will not take into account the
spending reversal as it is due to happen years later. Therefore they believe that this
increase in government expenditure will not be funded by taxes anytime soon so people
demand, shifting the IS curve to the right and causing a rise in real interest rate. This rise
in real interest rate will cause domestic bonds to have a higher return and therefore higher
demand for domestic currency( in international capital markets). This would cause a
Findings show that non fundamentalness is not the reason for the exchange rate puzzle in
open economy VAR and therefore a new method based on VAR is used to explain this
VAR that is impacted by anticipated government spending changes at the same time by
decomposition will then place this variable (news shock) as the 2nd residual while placing
We come to find in corsetti et al, 2012, that the introduction of the new variable (2nd in
order) by Ramey doesnt solve the exchange rate puzzle caused by unanticipated shocks.
However if the order of the variables are switched, it is found that the spending change
has delayed impacts on spending leading to its reduction, during the same time frame.
Therefore, domestic currency would now be stronger, enhancing and not solving the
exchange rate puzzle. This means this new variable cannot account for fiscal foresight
shock.
EMPIRICAL RESULTS DISCUSSION
From figure 1 we see, there is a positive government spending shock (fiscal expansion)
which is long-lived and significant for just less than 20 quarters. Despite the increase in
spending, there was a negative surprise shock (government spending change impacting
news) which was long-lived, significant from the 4th quarter and onwards; possibly due to
The increase in government spending lead to a short lived non significant impact on the
real exchange rate for 7 quarters and then causes a fall in the exchange rate for around 10
quarters with its impact being significant. There is a fall in exchange rate possibly because
people expect that this increase in government spending is permanent and therefore will
be funded by higher taxes in the future. Therefore, these people reduce their consumption,
lowering money demand (IS curve to the left), reducing interest rates, leading to domestic
bonds having lower return leading to lower demand in international capital markets leading
exports in proportion with gdp. This is because with a weaker currency, exports are
cheaper.
There is then a positive but short lived impact on consumption for a few quarters. This
levels decrease. With lower taxes, household disposable income is likely to rise and
decreases for about 10 quarters after. This is possibly because of the nature of surprise
shocks where agents analyse their expectations after the spending change has taken
place. Agents might think that this spending shock is permanent and therefore believe
they’ll be higher future taxes to fund this spending, causing consumption to fall.
Furthermore, gdp has a very similar pattern with impact of the same extent to that of
lived impact on gdp for a few quarters and then gdp decreases for 10 quarters after. This
consumption is the main driver of gdp changes as the response of investment was likely
not significant.
Overall, from this figure we see that this persistent fiscal expansion has some positives
and negatives. For the maximal benefit, we have to take into account that this economy
could be relatively closed as investment responses were not very significant. Furthermore,
reducing the long lived nature of the fiscal expansion could bring about more advantages
such as more and longer periods of consumption increases and therefore could increase
gdp levels. Therefore, a more temporary fiscal expansion could be more beneficial.
Figure 2: news shocks impulse response functions (with Hamilton filter)
We see above in figure 2, a positive news shock which holds significance for 15 quarters;
that is that agents expect a positive change in government spending. Therefore, this leads
to a slightly delayed (but persistent) rise in government spending from the 1st quarter.
There is then an increase in the real exchange rate with it stopping at 3rd quarter for a
short amount of time and carrying on to increase after it. The increase of the real
exchange rate following a positive news shock (followed by more govt spending) is
because more government spending would cause higher interest rates. Higher interest
rates would cause domestic bonds to have a higher return and therefore higher demand
We then see that impact on net exports is a negative one for about 15 quarters. This
negative impact is because exports are now dearer due to the rise in real exchange rate.
The impact on consumption is a positive but very short lived one (for first 4 quarters). The
positive nature could be explained due to the households thinking that this government
spending increase is temporary and therefore won’t be followed by higher future taxation,
causing more domestic demand and household disposable income and therefore more
consumption.
There is only a rise in gdp from the 3rd to 4th quarter. The pattern of gdp is similar but not
identical to the consumption pattern. Gdp=c+i; the similarity is due to the consumption
changes being significant for a very short amount of time. However the pattern is not
completely identical as investment must’ve been affected aswell perhaps due to the
From these effects, if the goal is to improve the current account and increase the level of
could raise the level of exports by reducing consumption (lower currency/money demand)
which would lower interest rates and cause depreciation of the currency. This depreciation
could potentially improve the current account by making exports cheaper. Furthermore, the
reduction in interest rates could increase investment (depending on the openness of this
on government spending. We can see that there’s an increase in government spending for
11 quarters. This has possibly cause a depreciation in exchange rate where it’s
significance occurs after a year and continues for the rest of the quarters in graph. There’s
a depreciation because people expect higher taxes, they reduce their consumption,
lowering money demand (IS curve to the left), reducing interest rates, leading to domestic
bonds having lower return leading to lower demand in international capital markets leading
Due to this government spending reversal causing higher future taxes, we see
We also see a negative and persistent effect on gdp from the 2nd quarter onwards. This is
because the consumption decrease cause the exchange rate to fall leading to a fall in
falls.
Figure 4 above is the impulse response function with the impulse on news shock. We see
that the news shock is short lived and then becomes non significant with a lag impact on
There is an appreciation of the real exchange rate from the 3rd to 9th quarter. This is
because people expect government spending to increase which causes an interest rate
rise. This leads to domestic bonds having a higher return and therefore higher demand,
We then see reduction of net exports/gdp from the 3rd to 16th quarter. This is due to the
appreciation of the exchange rate, as exports would now be dearer, reducing their
demand.
We also see that consumption rises until the 11th quarter. This means that households
think that the government spending increase is temporary and won’t be funded by higher
future taxes. Therefore households are comfortable with increasing their consumption.
Also, since consumption increases, gdp rises as gdp=c+I. However, we see that the output
increase is more than the consumption increase because investment also increased due
to the appreciation of the real exchange rate mentioned previously. The rise in gdp was
In figure 5 (in appendix), we see all are inside the unit root meaning the angular variance is
CONCLUSION
Overall, this paper has analysed the impact of the type of fiscal policy on the current
account and different ways in which the current account is affected such as through the
real exchange rate. I have done this by generating and interpreting impulse response
functions with impulses on different fiscal policy related shocks which impact the current
account; aswell as reviewing effects on the current account when structural VAR model
with Cholesky decomposition is used in Forni and Gambetti paper (2016), (Ramey, 2011).
Standard theory almost always implied that the result of a fiscal expansion was a twin
deficit, llori et al, 2022, (Beetsma and Giuliodori, 2011). However, based on empirical
evidence, an increase in government spending lowered the real exchange rate and
therefore improved the current account, Kim and roubini, 2008 (Corsetti et al, 2006); and
therefore it is gathered that the main effect of a fiscal expansion is a twin divergence and
The main mechanism which was found to be the cause of a twin divergence was through
the Ricardian effect where investment decreases and private savings rise causing a
current account improvement as ca=s-i (Corsetti et al, 2006). It was found that other
drivers of twin divergence were government spending reversals (Corsetti et al, 2012) and
appreciation of real exchange rate in the Mundell-Fleming Model in Forni and Gambetti
paper (Corsetti et al, 2006), through an open economy and persistent government
spending increases (Corsetti and muller, 2012). However there was very little empirical
evidence backing these theories especially in the Forni and Gambetti paper (Muller, 2006).
order to improve the current account would be to carry out a medium-run expansionary
fiscal policy, as it has more historical data support aswell as clear theoretical support to
APPENDIX
Corsetti, G. and Müller, G. (2006) 'Twin deficits: squaring theory, evidence and common
j.1468-0327.2006.00167.x.
Forni, M., Gambetti, L. and Research, C. for E.P. (2014) Government spending shocks in open
economy VARs.
Ilori, A., Páez-Farrell, J. and Thoenissen, C. (2022) 'Fiscal policy shocks and international
j.euroecorev.2021.103969.
Kim, S. and Roubini, N. (2008) 'Twin deficit or twin divergence? Fiscal policy, current
account, and real exchange rate in the U.S.,' Journal of International Economics,