Determinants of budget deficits: Focus on the effects from the COVID-19 crisis

Tevdovski, Dragan and Jolakoski, Petar and Stojkoski, Viktor (2021): Determinants of budget deficits: Focus on the effects from the COVID-19 crisis.

Abstract

This paper revisits the discussion on determinants of budget balances and investigates the change in their effect in light of the COVID-19 crisis by utilizing data on 43 countries and a system generalized method of moments approach. The results show that the overall impact of the global pandemic led to a disproportionate increase in the magnitude of the estimated effects of the macroeconomic determinants on the budget balance. However, we also find that more developed economies were able to undertake higher stimulus packages for the relatively same level of primary balance. We believe that one of the factors affecting this outcome is that that they exhibit a higher government debt position in domestic currency denomination.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: budget deficits, economic determinants, COVID-19
• Subjects: H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government > H10 - General; H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government > H12 - Crisis Management; P - Economic Systems > P0 - General

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