Revenue Expenditure Nexus Research Articles

To Starve the Beast or Not to Starve the Beast? Evidence from Debt-Distressed Region

ABSTRACT The elimination of budgetary disequilibrium remains a contentious issue, with scholars and policymakers debating the efficacy of tax alterations versus limiting government outlays. This topic has garnered significant attention, although research on the spending-revenue nexus is noticeably skewed against Africa, which presents an intriguing research opportunity. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reported a concerning rise in public debt across Africa, highlighting the urgent need for public finance consolidation. In contrast to the extant literature, this study examines the dynamic link between revenues and expenditures from 1990 to 2022. Applying wavelet decomposition to account for temporary variations, our analysis reveals dynamic patterns in the revenue-expenditure nexus. Our findings support the institutional separation hypothesis in the short run, suggesting a distinct relationship between revenues and outlay. However, in the medium-to long-run, our results support the fiscal synchronization hypothesis, accentuating a more intertwined association between revenues and expenditures. This study sheds light on the nuanced dynamics of budgetary equilibrium in Africa, providing insights that can inform policy priorities and decision-making. Finally, by focusing on the unique context of Africa and using advanced techniques, this study contributes to the existing literature on budgetary equilibrium, filling a crucial gap in our knowledge of the public finance dynamics in the region.

Revisiting fiscal deficit sustainability and revenue-expenditure nexus in India

The COVID-19 epidemic has brought to the emergence of fiscal sustainability as an exceptionally challenging issue for both emerging and advanced economies. In this context, it is imperative to assess the sustainability of fiscal deficit in India for the Central and State level for the period 1970–71 to 2021–2022 and 1973–74 to 2021–22, respectively. Furthermore, the study also seeks to establish the cause-and-effect relationship between government expenditure and revenue. The application of Gregory-Hansen cointegration test supports sustainability of fiscal deficits for Central and State governments individually. Additionally, the ARDL model for cointegration indicates that both governments exhibit "weak" sustainability of the fiscal deficit. Finally, the Toda-Yamamoto Granger non-causality test provides evidence in favour of the "spend-tax hypothesis" for both governments. In this backdrop, the present study posits that it is essential for governments to implement fiscal consolidation and prudent fiscal policies in order to reduce the magnitude of the budget deficit, optimise the execution of monetary and exchange rate policies, and foster development driven by the private sector. This approach is crucial to ensure long-term fiscal sustainability and economic stability in India, especially aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An analysis of the government revenue–expenditure nexus: A wavelet approach for the Romanian case

The turbulent economic environment of the last decades, the social effects associated with the responsibilities of the state to support the development of the green economy, and the increase of involvement in sustainable social inclusion make it necessary to increase budget revenues. Evaluating the link between government revenues and expenditures is a complex approach defined by several factors related to tax compliance and the perception of the efficiency of the expenditure. In addition, recent endogenous and exogenous shocks have considerably influenced the fundamentals of long-term fiscal policy and budget balancing. The type of relationship between government revenue and expenditure is analyzed to identify the leading and lagging variables, and the wavelet approach and monthly data for Romania for 2000–2021 are used. In various periods, the revenue led the expenditure, or vice versa. The spend–tax and tax–spend hypotheses are confirmed for different periods. The analysis highlights the intervals of behavioral asymmetry, which helps to monitor the implementation of fiscal policy. Also, the results could represent a starting point for outlining measures in the fiscal policy area.

Fiscal Sustainability: Public Revenue-Expenditure Nexus in a Few Asymmetric Countries in the Globe

This article examines the public revenue and expenditure patterns and its nexus of a few countries. This paper employs panel unit root, panel cointegration and Vector Error Correction Model to analyze the inter-temporal association among the variables of government revenues, expenditures and the growth of GDP through the panel data of ten divergent nations over the period 2001 to 2017. The study exercised three cointegration tests and these estimates find the evidence of long run association among articulated three variables. To know the cross-section status of different nations this paper diverted Phillips-Peron test with bandwidth statistics and it asserted that, all ten countries secured the long run association among the variables. The study uncovered that, growth of GDP has escalated in 0.78% by one percentage increase in revenue expenditure; meanwhile, 1.41% lessening in GDP growth by one percentage increase in revenue income. The specified model is supported by a few diagnostic tests.

Public Revenue-Expenditure Nexus: A Test of Fiscal Synchronization Hypothesis in Nigeria

Public Revenue-Expenditure Nexus: A Test of Fiscal Synchronization Hypothesis in Nigeria

Changes in the revenue–expenditure nexus: confronting evidence with fiscal policy in Brazil

ABSTRACT This study examines causality shifts in the revenue–expenditure nexus in Brazil during the years 1996–2019. The literature usually assumed a time-invariant causality link between government revenues and expenditures. Such assumption becomes often implausible when the sample period covers significant economic, political and policy changes, like the case of Brazil in the last two decades. Based on time-varying Granger causality tests, we found three distinct causality episodes: fiscal synchronization in 2005–2008, spend-and-tax in 2010–2013, and a tax-and-spend in 2015–2018. These episodes are intercalated with periods of no causality that coincides with economic crisis, political turmoil and major shifts in fiscal policy. The findings suggest that the interplay between fiscal policy orientation and primary surplus targeting is an important factor in the revenue–expenditure nexus. The most recent causality episode suggests stronger effects running from revenues to expenditures in the Brazilian primary budget dynamics. In this context, according to the tax-and-spend hypothesis, cutting spending seems to be the right course of action to restore fiscal balance in Brazil. A tax increase should be considered with caution because it may only incentive the government to grow its expenditures.

Emerging Issues in Fiscal Sustainability in India: A Study of Central Government Finances, 1979–1980 to 2018–2019

The objective of the article is to examine the fiscal sustainability of the Indian central government’s finances in the era of rule-based fiscal policy. Asymmetric budgetary adjustment process and revenue–expenditure nexus are also analysed in this article by employing threshold autoregressive models/momentum threshold autoregressive models. Findings of the article reveal emerging issues in fiscal sustainability in India. The central government’s expenditure as a share of gross domestic product (GDP) has been falling continuously, leaving little room for further pruning. The current scenario of negative growth in central government’s revenue as a share of GDP, if not reversed, can become the Achilles heel of government finances in India. JEL Classification: E62, H600, H500, C32

INVESTIGATING THE GOVERNMENT REVENUE–EXPENDITURE NEXUS: EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE FREE STATE PROVINCE IN A MULTIVARIATE MODEL

This paper examines the government revenue–expenditure nexus for the Free State Province in a multivariate vector error correction model (VECM) using real GDP and inflation as control variables over the period 2004Q2–2018Q1.Cointegration and intertemporal (causal) links among variables were established employing Johansen (1995) and Toda-Yamamoto (1995) non-Granger causality tests. The results of the cointegration analysis confirm the existence of a long-run relationship between variables. The results of the causal analyses show a bidirectional causality between government revenues and expenditures in both the long-run and short-run supporting the fiscal synchronization hypothesis. Real GDP and inflation individually Granger-causes government revenue, in both the long-run and short-run, stressing their importance on generating revenue. Based on these findings, an isolated fiscal measure to raise tax-revenues or cut expenditure will exacerbate fiscal imbalance. On the policy front, the Free State government should adhere to a planned budget process, devise innovative revenue-generating strategies to circumvent the burden of producing inflation revenue, as well as utilize its autonomy on fiscal instruments to maintain a sustainable fiscal policy path, and stimulate economic growth.

The Government Revenue–Expenditure Nexus in Southeast Europe: A Bootstrap Panel Granger-Causality Approach

ABSTRACT This article presents one of the first attempts to explore the relationship between government revenues and government expenditures in six Southeast European countries for the period 1999–2015, employing a bootstrap panel Granger-causality approach, which provides insight into the nature and direction of their relationship in each country. The empirical results indicate a unidirectional relationship from government revenues to government expenditures in five countries (Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia, and Slovenia), confirming the revenue-expenditure or tax-spend hypothesis. The findings offer support for the fiscal synchronization hypothesis only in Macedonia, where bidirectional causality between government revenues and government expenditures was found.

Asymmetric Relationship Between Government Revenues and Expenditures in a Developing Economy: Evidence from a Non-linear Model

Understanding the revenue–expenditure nexus is the core essence of this research in the Pakistani context. This research examines the non-linear relationship between government revenues and government expenditures during 1972–2014. The recently developed non-linear co-integration technique has been used along with the symmetry test. The result shows that the revenues and expenditures have co-integration and provide the evidence in favour of fiscal synchronization hypothesis in the budgetary process. Moreover, the finding also reveals that the relationship between these two fiscal elements is asymmetric and negative changes in revenues and expenditures have a greater impact than the positive ones. Furthermore, another important aspect that was revealed during the study was that the negative shocks in the revenues will lead towards the drastically large increase in the expenditure.

Asymmetries in the revenue–expenditure nexus: new evidence from South Africa

In this study, we relax the conventional assumption of a linear cointegration relationship in the revenue–expenditure nexus by examining asymmetric equilibrium effects in the South African fiscal budget using quarterly data collected between 1960:Q1 and 2016:Q2. Our mode of empirical investigation is the MTAR model supplemented with a TEC component. Our estimation results primarily point to a weakly sustainable budget in which there exists bidirectional causality between revenues and expenditures, a result which offers support in favour of the fiscal synchronization hypothesis. Collectively, our empirical results have important implications for South African fiscal policymakers.

Cointegration between Government Expenditure and Revenue: Evidence from India

The study examines the nexus between tax revenue of the government and public expenditure in India using Johensen-Juselius cointegration Methodology during 1980-81 to 2013-14. It tests four hypotheses relating to the revenue-expenditure nexus, i.e. tax-spend hypothesis, spend-tax hypothesis, fiscal synchronization hypothesis and institutional separation hypothesis. The nexus is studied at centre, state and combined level. The study establishes one cointegrating relationship between public expenditure and tax revenue which suggests a long-run relationship between the two. The results of the Vector Error Correction Models evince that there is one-way causality running from tax revenue to expenditure both in short-run as well as in the long-run. This result justifies the operation of tax-spend hypothesis. The reverse-causality is not found in the analysis either for short or long-run.

Revenue-Expenditure Nexus of Selected Northern States of India: A Time Series Analysis

Revenue-Expenditure Nexus of Selected Northern States of India: A Time Series Analysis

Public Revenue‐Expenditure Nexus in South Africa: Are there Asymmetries?

AbstractThis paper re‐examines the government revenue and expenditure relationship in South Africa using Enders and Siklos' Threshold adjustment and Granger causality tests. The paper allows for structural breaks in the unit root and cointegration tests. The results indicate the absence of any asymmetries in both the threshold autoregression and momentum threshold autoregression specifications of adjustments in the South African's budgeting process. The estimated symmetric error‐correction models provide support for the fiscal synchronization hypothesis of government revenues and expenditures for long‐run and short‐run dynamic equilibrium. These findings indicate that the South African fiscal authorities should try to maintain or even improve the control of their fiscal policy instruments to sustain the prudent budgetary process.

The Dynamics of the Revenue–Expenditure Nexus

Using data from the contiguous US states from 1951 to 2008, this study examines the dynamics of the intertemporal budget constraint to better understand persistent budget deficits. The direction of causality between tax revenues and expenditures is of primary interest in answering the four hypotheses set forth in the literature: tax-spend, spend-tax, fiscal synchronization, and institutional separation. Overall, the results convey evidence in favor of the tax-spend hypothesis. The dynamics differ, however, in that states with relatively higher debt levels respond slower to fiscal imbalances and rely more on expanding debt levels. These results present a clear illustration of the fiscal adjustment mechanism and how states adapt under various institutional restraints.

Revisiting the Government Revenue-Expenditure Nexus: Evidence from Nigeria Based on the VAR Granger Causality Approach

The relationship between government revenue and government expenditure is important, given its relevance for policy especially with respect to the budget deficit. The purpose of this study is to examine the structure of federal government revenue and expenditure in Nigeria, from 1961-2010. It investigates the causal relationship between government revenue and government expenditure, using Granger causality test through cointegrated vector autoregression (VAR) methods; so as to determine whether the tax-spend hypothesis, spend-tax hypothesis, fiscal synchronization hypothesis, or the fiscal neutrality hypothesis hold in the relationship between government revenue and expenditure for Nigeria. The result shows that there is a bi-directional causality between government revenue and government expenditure. The outcome of the bi-directional causality between government revenue and expenditure supports the fiscal synchronization hypothesis. This therefore, suggest that the federal government should not make spending-tax decisions in isolation of tax-spend decisions. This is because the joint determination of revenues and expenditures is appealing as long as it effectively restrains the budget deficit. Therefore, efforts at enhancing sources of revenue should be accompanied by reductions in government spending for Nigeria.

Asymmetries in the revenue–expenditure nexus: A tale of three countries

The objective of this paper is to examine the government revenue and expenditure relationship in the context of what is known as the soft and hard budget constraint strategy. We adopt a nonlinear framework with structural breaks and focus our empirical analysis in three countries. Two of them represent the two extremes of polities in the EU: Sweden and Greece and the third, Germany is used for comparison purposes. Our results indicate absence of any asymmetries, TAR or MTAR, for Sweden and Germany. The symmetric ECM provides support for the fiscal synchronization hypothesis of revenues and expenditures in both countries. For Greece, however, we find evidence for asymmetries of the MTAR form, which in turn support the spend-and-tax hypothesis with asymmetric adjustment towards the long-run equilibrium. This indicates that the Greek fiscal authorities would cut deficits only if they exceeded a high “trigger” threshold, which gives support to the soft budget constraint strategy to gain political support. The fiscal adjustment takes place by cutting government expenditure. The out-of-sample forecast results suggest that a shift from a univariate model specification to a multivariate model improves marginally the forecast performance.

Do US federal revenues and expenditures respond asymmetrically to budgetary disequilibria?

We follow Ewing et al. (2006) and examine the US federal revenue–expenditure nexus in an Error-Correction Model (ECM) allowing for asymmetric adjustment. Symmetric adjustment is rejected by data covering 1959.3 to 2007.4. Depending on whether a Threshold Autoregression (TAR) or Momentum Threshold Autoregression (M-TAR) model is employed, the estimated asymmetry is very different. We argue that there is little justification for preferring one model over the other and the concepts of ‘worsening’ or ‘improving’ budgets are model-contingent in important ways. Taking this into account, the results across models need not be contradictory.

Tax more or spend less? Asymmetries in the UK revenue–expenditure nexus

Unlike previous research on the causal relationship between government revenues and expenditures in the United Kingdom, this study estimates an asymmetric error correction model within a momentum threshold autoregressive framework over the period 1955–2009. The results indicate that government revenues respond to short-run changes in government expenditures as well as asymmetrically to budgetary disequilibrium. With respect to the asymmetric adjustment, the response of government revenues to a worsening budget is faster (in absolute terms) than to an improving budget. Thus, contrary to previous studies on the UK, the empirical findings lend support for the spend–tax hypothesis.

Asymmetric modelling of the revenue-expenditure nexus: evidence from aggregate state and local government in the US

This study examines the time series dynamics between US aggregate state and local government receipts and expenditures in differentiating between four hypotheses related to the revenue-expenditure nexus: tax-spend, spend-tax, fiscal synchronization and institutional separation hypotheses. Unlike previous research at the state and local level, the possibility of asymmetries in the budgetary process is explored using the threshold autoregressive (TAR) and momentum threshold autoregressive (MTAR) cointegration framework of Enders and Siklos (2001). The results indicate the absence of any asymmetries (TAR or MTAR) in the adjustment towards budgetary equilibrium. The symmetric error correction model provides support for the spend-tax hypothesis.