Domestic Debt, Inflation and Economic Crises: A Panel Cointegration Application to Emerging and Developed Economies

Abstract

The paper aims to investigate the economic relationship between inflation and domestic debt. In countries that experience high inflation, the inflationary process fed on increasing costs of domestic debt. As a result, the increasing debt to GDP ratios led these countries to borrow at higher interest rates and with lower maturity rates. The paper aims to divide countries into three groups. First group consists of Mexico, Turkey and Brazil; countries with high inflation experiences which result in increasing costs of domestic debt. Second group consists of Belgium, Canada and Japan, low inflation rates, low costs of borrowing. Third group consists of Portugal, Greece and Spain, countries with low inflation, high borrowing with low costs of borrowing and fiscal discipline. It is observed that, increasing costs of borrowing is epidemic to those with Non-Ricardian fiscal policies. As a result, it is not the rate of domestic debt/GDP ratio but the cost of borrowing and active fiscal regimes that lessens the immunity of emerging economies to the economic crises. Another important result that cannot be avoided is the fact that, FMOLS and DOLS methods followed in the study resulted in similar estimates for some countries, whereas we also observe very different estimates for others.

Keywords: FTPL, Ricardian Equivalence, Inflation and public debt, Panel cointegration, Panel VAR; Panel VEC, FMOLS, DOLS

JEL Classification: C22, E31, E60, H60