• East Asian Economic Review
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.55-73
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• 2018

The substantial slowdown of economic growth since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009 is rekindling debate on whether developing Asia should use fiscal expansion to boost aggregate demand. A key factor in the debate is the effectiveness of countercyclical fiscal policy in the region. The global crisis, as well as the fiscal stimulus packages implemented by developing Asian countries at that time, give some clues to this important issue. The region weathered the global crisis well and experienced a robust V-shaped recovery. According to conventional wisdom, the fiscal stimulus packages put in place by Asian governments played a key role in the region's recovery. The central objective of this paper is to empirically test this wisdom by using cross-country panel data. Our main finding is that the stimulus has had a limited but positive impact on developing Asia's output during the global crisis. This lends some support to the notion that countercyclical fiscal policy can help the region cope with severe external shocks. The broader, more fundamental implication for regional policymakers is that the region's long-standing commitment to fiscal discipline can yield significant benefits beyond macroeconomic stability. An important consequence of this commitment - relatively healthy fiscal balance sheets - enabled the region's governments to quickly and decisively embark upon fiscal stimulus programs.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.12 no.4
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• pp.253-270
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• 2021

Purpose - The main purpose of this study is to measure and evaluate the level of national liabilities that Korea's national finances can afford. Specifically, the concepts of national debt and national liability are clarified, and the appropriate level of national liabilities is measured in terms of short-term fiscal crisis, mid-to-long-term fiscal crisis, and GDP. Based on these measurements of fiscal crisis, this study would like to propose national fiscal management plans. Design/methodology/approach - In order to clearly recognize the difference between the national debt and the national liability, this study examines the data from 2013 to 2020. In addition, this study uses data from the national financial statements from 2013 to 2018 to measure the appropriate level of national liabilities in terms of fiscal crisis management. Findings - Short-term fiscal crises, measured by current ratios, will not occur. Nevertheless, in view of the cash flow compensation ratio, the short-term bankruptcy of the national finances of Korea depends on the re-borrowing of short-term borrowings and current and long-term borrowings. In addition, in order to manage the mid-to long-term financial crisis, it is necessary to pay attention to the liability growth rate rather than the liability size. Research implications or Originality - While previous studies focused on the appropriate level of national debt, this study was differentiated as a study focused on the level of national liability coverage. It is expected that the results of this study will be used to manage the national fiscal soundness.

• Journal of the Korean Regional Science Association
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.75-92
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• 1999

In this study, the present state of fiscal crisis for local governments after IMF is analyzed, firstly. its implications Characteristics of structural reform of finance after IMF bailout in Korea are examined, secondly. Since Korea was shocked by the currency crisis at the end of 1997, its local governments have also faced fiscal difficulties. The Depression of national and local economies led to decreases in tax revenues of local governments. And these shrunken revenues led to their expenditure cuts. Many investment plans were curtailed, and ordinary expenditures were also reduced sharply. The negative influences of the currency crisis on local government's finances can be examined in terms of fiscal revenue, fiscal spending, and debt burden. As a result many local governments are now experiencing fiscal stress, and some of them are even faced with fiscal crisis although the possibility of extreme measures, such as moratoriums or bankruptcies, is very slim. This is due in part to the weight of debt in local governments' budgets having remained small since the debt of local governments has been controlled by the central government. Another reason is that, central government, which functions as a lender of last resort for the local governments, will pay the debt for them. Also, without a legal system which stipulates the adjudication of bankruptcy for municipalities in Korea, local Korean governments have no legal right to declare bankruptcy. Although not a single municipality has fallen into insolvency, yet, this trend will continue to deepen as the recession continues and may lead to a situation where manu local governments fall into virtual bankruptcy in the near future, and its effects on society, as a whole, will be serious. Therefore, measures to prevent and overcome such an extreme situation are necessary, but both short-and long-term policies should be to cope with the current fiscal crisis and to prevent the deepening of the current situation.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.34 no.4
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• pp.27-68
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• 2012

This study outlines measures related to fiscal policies aimed at responding to the financial crisis according to the timing of commencement and then examines impacts of expansionary fiscal policies on macro variables so as to extract policy implications. The size of expansionary fiscal policy to respond to the financial crisis is found to total 59.8 trillion won (6.1% of GDP in 2007), among which a total of 30.5 trillion won was the increased fiscal expenditure made by the 2008 supplementary budget, the 2009 revised budget and the 2009 supplementary budget. In addition, tax reductions are found to be a total of 29.3 trillion won, mainly driven by the tax reforms in 2008 and 2009. Examining dynamic changes in macro variables caused by the temporary increase in fiscal expenditure and the tax reductions reveals that the increase effect of the real GDP growth rate brought by a temporary rise in fiscal expenditure excluding tax reduction effects turned out to be 1.1%p in 2009 and 0.3%p in 2010, compared to the period without the increase in fiscal expenditure. Meanwhile, when taking into account the effect of expansionary fiscal policies including tax reduction effects, the increase effect of real GDP turns out to be much higher. In the case of 2009, the real GDP rose additionally by 1.9%p, in which 1.1%p by the increase in fiscal expenditure and 0.8%p by tax reduction. Based on these results, the expansionary fiscal policy conducted during the financial crisis since the second half of 2008 can be seen to have played a significant role in helping the Korean economy post a higher-than-anticipated recovery pace from the economic slowdown triggered by the crisis.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.25-38
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• 2018

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to empirically investigate the impact of donor's fiscal status on aid decisions before and after the 2008 global financial crisis. The effects on aid can change depending on the donor country's fiscal status and the period of financial crisis. Research design, data, and methodology - A fixed effect regression and dynamic panel GMM is conducted using a comprehensive dataset combining 31 donor and 167 recipient countries during 1996-2015. The key explanatory variable is central government debt-to-GDP ratio of donor country. Recipient countries' GNI per capita, population, governance indicators, and bilateral trade-to-GDP ratio between donor and recipient countries are included as control variables. Results - We can confirm the relationship between donor country's fiscal status and aid flow. The cyclical component of government debt is found to have a negative impact on grant decisions particularly after the 2008 global financial crisis. This effect becomes larger in the countries with high government debt-to-GDP ratio. ODA decisions from the countries with low financial constraint do not significantly affected by the recipient countries' factors such as GNI, population, and governance indicator. Conclusions - Based on the empirical results of this study, the source of aid should be diversified by incorporating private sector and innovative financing sources.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.23-36
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• 2014

Recently economic crisis has brought world economic instability. Each country in order to stabilize the economy, fiscal rules are introduced or reinforced. Fiscal Policy in a country plays an important role in determining the economic situation in the present and future. Existing fiscal rules tend to place a rigid limit not only on the deficit ratio and thus on the scope for fiscal stabilization, but also on the extent to which fiscal policy can be used for structural purposes. But the fiscal rules are operated in many ways and adopted in various forms, with different binding of each other, according to their own fiscal situations, and political circumstances. This study shows several important factors for successful National fiscal system and continuous fiscal soundness and development.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.719-749
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• 2008

Using the cost-risk portfolio approach, this study suggests a fiscal budgeting model that provide a measure to allocate fiscal budget among the strategies responding to oil crisis. In addition, it calculates the appropriate fiscal distribution among policy measures for the 2000 to 2006 fiscal years. According to the empirical results, a certain amount of budget should be allocated to the option using futures markets. The strategic stockpiling option turns out be hard to be included in the policy portfolio due to its costs much higher that the other options. Oil well development option should take more than half of total budget since its expenses are assumed to be relatively low.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.71-105
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• 2013

Now that fiscal soundness is increasingly important influenced by the euro area fiscal crisis, early budget execution has been under the spotlight as a tool for economy control, other than typical expansionary method, such as supplementary budget. Basically, early budget execution is a fiscal policy instrument that reponses to economic fluctuations through modifying the inter-temporal allocation of fiscal expenditure within budget, without affecting fiscal soundness. This study empirically examines how effective the intert-temporal reallocation of fiscal expenditure is in economy control. Using Korea's Consolidated Fiscal data, the size of inter-temporal reallocation of fiscal expenditure is defined as changes of fiscal expenditure for one year excluding seasonal factors and used to explain real economic growth rate, a dependent variable. The result shows that the macroeconomic effect of the inter-temporal reallocation turns out meaningful in general, though some policy time lag exists. Meanwhile, a simulation using macroeconomic model finds that overall effect on economic growth is not large because increase in fiscal expenditure allocation at a certain point of time is canceled by the opposite direction within the same fiscal year. However, the inter-temporal reallocation is found to reduce volatility of key macroeconomic variables so as to contribute to partially stabilizing macroeconomy. In particular, such effect of economic stabilization seems to be highly apparent at the time of financial crisis, but not very noticeable in normal economic cycle.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.1-64
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• 2014

This paper attempts to search the driving forces of the Korean economy after 2000 by analyzing an estimated DSGE model and observing the degree of implementation regarding non-systematic parts of both the monetary and fiscal policy during the global financial crisis. Two types of trends, various cyclical factors and frictions are introduced in the model for an empirical analysis in which historical decompositions of key macro variables are quantitatively assessed after 2000. While the monetary policy during the global financial crisis have reacted systematically in accordance with the estimated Taylor rule relatively, the fiscal policy which was aggressively expansionary is not fully explained by the estimated fiscal rule but more by the large magnitude of non-systematic reaction.

• Korean Journal of Social Welfare
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.143-166
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• 2006

The purpose of this study was to empirically test whether occupational welfare in Korea would have grown since the mid 1990s. The result of this study showed that after the IMF fiscal crisis, the policies of labor flexibility in labor market initiated flexible forms of employer-provided benefits, including cafeteria plan or profit-based funds, which finally led to a decline of occupational welfare rather than a growth. Existing studies haven't agreed on trade-off of statutory and voluntary social provisions since the crisis of welfare state. However, based on the case of Korea, this study suggested archetypal development of welfare system experiencing a decline of occupational welfare paralleled with a growth of state welfare provision.