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111. Fear Athens Less and Washington More

Author:
Irwin M. Stelzer
Publication Date:
05-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Hudson Institute
Abstract:
There comes a tide in the affairs of men And the one sweeping from Greece, across Europe and into the United States is washing away support for austerity, in some cases reinforcing opposition to it, largely from the Left. President Obama is delighted at this support for his refusal to cut spending in the face of mounting deficits, and the Republicans are feeling beleaguered at what they see as the disinterment of the body of works of John Maynard Keynes. No longer must the President sit at G8 meetings (in this weekend's case, G7 since Vladimir Putin finds it necessary to stay at home to deal with an unpleasant spate of dissent) and hear only the voice of Germany's iron Chancellor, Angela Merkel, extolling the virtues of thrift, austerity and balanced budgets. Now he has France's new socialist President, François Hollande, to preach the virtues of spending, "the indispensable stimulation of the economy", and, even better, high taxes-- up to 75% on incomes in excess of $1.35 million per year, which makes the team of Buffett and Obama mere pikers at the soak-the-rich game. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed the administration's delight at Hollande's "different political approach Different voices may be louder on growth than they have been It's been our view that there needed to be adjustments to austerity, so that there could be growth, both for economic reasons and for political reasons President Obama and our economic team have been saying for some time that growth had to factor into a European recovery." Take that, Mrs. Merkel and all you Republicans who want to cut entitlement spending and retain the Bush tax cuts that benefit "millionaires and billionaires", Obama shorthand for families earning more than $250,000 per year.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Monetary Policy, and Budget
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Washington, Greece, and France

112. Is the Twin Deficits Hypothesis Valid in the case of Turkey?

Author:
Fuat Sekmen and Unsal Ozan Kahraman
Publication Date:
12-2012
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Bilgi
Institution:
Değişim Yayınları
Abstract:
This study deals with the relationship between the current account deficit and the budget deficit in Turkey. Artificial Neural Networks are employed to investigate this relationship. According to the results of the application the twin deficits hypothesis which indicates a positive correlation between the two deficits isn’t valid in Turkey. As this paper tries to analyze the factors accounting for the absence of this kind of correlation, it develops a flexible understanding which doesn’t refuse a hypothesis or a theory (the twin deficits hypothesis) completely, on the contrary, emphasizes the importance of investigating the conditions in which a hypothesis, theory or a model is valid.
Topic:
Economics, Budget, Finance, and Deficit
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Asia

113. Aging Eagle and Dark Clouds on the Security Horizon

Author:
Dong-Joon Jo
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
The financial crisis in 2008 exposed a latent weakness that the United States would not have resources enough to cope with its population aging and maintain its global leadership. The crisis led the federal government to increase its welfare spending, bail out faltering industries, and rely on measures of economic stimulation. These measures resulted in the swelling of the public debt, which increased by $5,077 billion from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2010, and intensified the U.S. federal government’s budgetary difficulties in meeting the welfare and medical needs of senior citizens and carrying out the war on terror abroad (See Figure 1). The belief in the sustainability of the public debt severely weakened, as the interest expense on the public debt rose to 8.6 percent of the total federal spending in 2010; the belief in the comparability between U.S. domestic welfare and its global leadership eroded. The financial crisis evoked a fairly routine set of behavior in partisan politics in 2011. When the public debt was about to reach the ceiling in 2011, Republicans and majority members of the Tea Party threatened not to agree on raising the debt ceiling. They pressured the Barack Obama administration to reduce the federal budget and governmental regulations. Meanwhile, the Obama administration and Democrats wanted to raise the maximum amount of governmental borrowing and keep boosting the economy. In the gunfire between the two parties loomed the possibility of sovereign default. Amid the partisan conflict the credit rating of the U.S. government bonds was downgraded for the first time in history; major market indexes plunged in the third quarter of 2011. The Budget Control Act was the result of bipartisan negotiations, accommodating conflicting goals and instruments from both sides. It provided breathing room for the Obama administration and Democrats by allowing the debt ceiling to increase by $900 billion two times in 2011 and additionally by $1.2 trillion in 2012. Meanwhile, it reduced the budgetary leeway of the administration and gave more power to the House, where Republicans and Tea Party members held the majority. More specifically, it established binding limits on annual appropriations bills to reduce the funding for discretionary programs, relative to the funding in the Congressional Budget Office’s 2010 baseline; it set up a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the “Supercommittee,” to come up with a bill to reduce deficits by at least $1.5 trillion through 2021. The legislation appeared to keep the partisan gunfire under control.
Topic:
Security, Financial Crisis, Budget, and Welfare
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

114. Enhancing public budgeting transparency in Botswana: Why and how

Author:
Gape Kaboyakgosi
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis
Abstract:
This policy brief discusses the need to make Botswana’s budget process more transparent. Transparent or open budgets both facilitate and support timely, relevant public access to budget information, enhancing citizen participation in the budgetary process. Transparent budgets also strengthen the role and independence of oversight institutions such as Parliament and Supreme Audit Institution (SAI)-or the Office of the Auditor General. The objective of this brief is to advocate for the opening up of Botswana’s budgetary process, hence the paper concludes by making recommendations on how to enhance budget transparency in Botswana.
Topic:
Economics, Governance, Budget, Local, and State Funding
Political Geography:
Africa and Botswana

115. On the Solvency of Nations: Are Global Imbalances Consistent with Intertemporal Budget Constraints?

Author:
Ceyhun Bora Durdu
Publication Date:
06-2009
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
Theory predicts that a nation's stochastic intertemporal budget constraint is satisfied if net foreign assets (NFA) are integrated of any finite order, or if net exports (NX) and NFA satisfy an error- correction specification with a residual integrated of any finite order. We test these conditions using data for 21 industrial and 29 emerging economies for the 1970-2004 period. The results show that, despite the large global imbalances of recent years, NFA and NX positions are consistent with external solvency. Country-specific unit root tests on NFA-GDP ratios suggest that nearly all of them are integrated of order 1. Pooled Mean Group error-correction estimation yields evidence of a statistically significant, negative response of the NX-GDP ratio to the NFA-GDP ratio that is largely homogeneous across countries.
Topic:
Debt, Budget, Global Financial Crisis, and Economic Inequality
Political Geography:
Global Focus

116. Paying for Homeland Security: Show Me the Money

Author:
Cindy Williams
Publication Date:
04-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
MIT Center for International Studies
Abstract:
In January 2003, the Bush administration drew 22 dis- parate agencies and some 170,000 employees into a new Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Proponents of the reorganization hoped a single department under a single cabi- net secretary would foster unity of effort across a substantial portion of the federal activities related to domestic security. A key tool would be the department’s budget. With all the agencies beholden to him for their money, the secretary could promote and reward much-needed integration across the department. He could wield the budget tool to expand high priority activities, eliminate or defer the less important or redundant ones, and reallocate the workforce to fill gaps in high-risk areas. A look at budgets since the department was established reflects little in the way of realignment, however. Department funding rose by more than 40 percent between 2003 and 2007, but there has been only minimal reallocation of bud- gets from areas of lower risk or priority to functions the department says are more important. With the exception of added spending to support the Secure Border Initiative announced by President Bush in November 2005, the depart- ment’s main operating components each enjoy about the same share of the DHS budget today as they did when the department was created.1 The result is that— despite the heavy cost in both dollars and institutional disruption—the United States is not getting what it should out of the reorganization.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Military Affairs, Budget, and Homeland Security
Political Geography:
United States

117. Budgeting in Turkey

Author:
Ian Hawkesworth, Daniel Bergvall, and Dirk-Jan Kraan
Publication Date:
10-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
Abstract:
The Turkish budget process has three features which set it apart from other OECD countries: a centralised yet fragmented decision-making process; the IMF stand-by agreement as a de facto fiscal rule; and a very detailed line-item classification. This article analyses these features and makes suggestions for policy adjustment to improve effectiveness and efficiency. The article examines all stages of the budget process (preparation, parliamentary approval, execution, and accounting and auditing) and assesses Turkey’s recent rapid progress with reform. The article offers suggestions for next steps and new priorities for Turkey in the light of other OECD country experience.
Topic:
Governance, Budget, and Fiscal Policy
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Asia