Despite the frequent use of fiscal policy for stabilization purposes and the important role fiscal activism has played over the last decade, the size of budgetary multipliers (i.e. the output response following an exogenous shock to fiscal policy) has been heatedly debated at the theoretical and...

Much of the research on fiscal multipliers has used reduced form modelling approaches. While these models have been extended to include richer controls and identification approaches, it remains unclear whether shocks identified capture the true structural shocks. An alternative way to identify...

The public-debt-to-GDP ratio in South Africa increased from 26 per cent in the 2008/09 fiscal year to 73.9 per cent in 2023/24, raising fears that fiscal policy is not sustainable. This raises the question: did the government take steps to arrest the increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio and regain...

There is scant analysis on the causal relationship between fiscal capacity and social protection expenditure in the developing world. We investigate the causal relationship between fiscal capacity of the state and social protection expenditure, hypothesizing that fiscal capacity is necessary but...

This paper empirically examines South Africa's fiscal sustainability through a Markovswitching model which utilizes quarterly datasets for the period from 1960 to 2019. The results show that public debt responds positively, demonstrating a sustainable fiscal policy. Furthermore, considering the...

The population structure the world over is going through a demographic shift, and the elderly proportion is projected to increase with population growth. This change is a matter of concern for sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, where the majority of the people are young and the rates of both...

The 'right' choice of instruments and modalities to provide aid to developing countries in support of poverty reduction and economic development is arguably the most contested issue in the current international debate on aid effectiveness. A particular controversy exists around the provision of...

Aid is said to be fungible at the aggregate level if it raises government expenditures by less than the total amount. This happens when the recipient government decreases domestic revenue, decreases net borrowing, or when aid bypasses the budget. This study makes three contributions to both...

Using comparable fiscal incidence analysis, this paper examines the impact of fiscal policy on inequality and poverty in 25 countries for around 2010. Success in fiscal redistribution is driven primarily by redistributive effort (share of social spending to GDP in each country) and the extent to...

Mozambique has achieved incipient but still fragile socio-economic development since 1975. The public financial management system has been reformed and improved, but its performance has weakened since 2013. Applying an institutional economics approach, we have identified the economic growth...