Fiscal Policy Rules in Practice

Figure 4: Germany and Spain, Debt/GDP Ratios related to Regime Classification.

interval for debt/output ratios in figure 3 is not relevant for the practical policy analysis. This
means then that Spain’s fiscal policy runs higher revenue/output ratios than Germany only for
extremely large debt/output ratios of more than 250 % given that Germany is in regime 2 at
the same time. Finally, Germany’s regime 1 leads to the largest revenue/output ratios in the
relevant interval of debt/output ratios.

When focusing on the debt/output ratio and excluding the other variables that determine the
revenue/GDP ratio, we observe a shift toward a more sustainable fiscal policy in both countries
during the end-1990s. This change in fiscal policy behavior has been more distinct in Germany
than in Spain, as Germany’s fiscal policy underwent a change in both autonomous government
revenues and its reaction to the debt/GDP ratio. But in contrast to Spain Germany’s fiscal
policy change has not been permanent. When we solely focus on the debt/GDP ratio, we neglect
the fact that Spain exhibits a much stronger reaction of revenues to changes in expenditures than
Germany. Furthermore, when looking at the process of debt/output ratios in the two countries, as
given in figure 4 , we can basically see that Germany, whose fiscal policy we generally interpreted
as being more sustainable in terms of debt than Spain’s, underwent considerable increases in
the debt/output ratio at least till the late 1990s. At the same time Spain shows a substantial
decrease in its debt/GDP ratio. We interpret this fact not as a lack of sustainability with respect
to debt but as a lack of sustainability with respect to expenditures.

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