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Paul Viefers
- 26 March 2015
- WORKING PAPER SERIES - No. 1771Details
- Abstract
- This paper considers the impact of changes in governments' payment discipline on the private sector. We argue that increased delays in public payments can affect private sector liquidity and profits and hence ultimately economic growth. We test this prediction empirically for European Union countries using two complementary approaches. First, we use annual panel data, including a newly constructed proxy for government arrears. Using panel data techniques, including methods that allow for endogeneity, we find that payment delays and to some extent estimated arrears lead to a higher likelihood of bankruptcy, lower profits, and lower economic growth. While this approach allows a broad set of variables to be included, it restricts the number of time periods. We therefore complement it with a Bayesian VAR approach on quarterly data for selected countries faced with significant payment delays. With this second approach, we also find that the likelihood of bankruptcies rises when the governments increase the average payment period.
- JEL Code
- E6 : Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics→Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook
H6 : Public Economics→National Budget, Deficit, and Debt
H8 : Public Economics→Miscellaneous Issues