重大疫情冲击与财政可持续性--来自多事件合成控制法的证据

Epidemics and Fiscal Sustainability:Evidence from the Multi-Event Synthetic Control Method

重大疫情不但影响公共健康和经济增长,也会影响财政可持续性,但少有研究对此进行定量评估。利用全球196个经济体1990—2018年的疫情-宏观经济匹配数据和多事件合成控制法,本文首次评估了重大疫情冲击对财政可持续性的平均因果影响,并分析了其产生影响的机制。多事件合成控制法的思路是,对每个遭受重大疫情冲击的经济体,利用合成控制法生成一个未发生疫情的反事实结果,然后计算平均处理效应。结果表明:第一,只有重大疫情才会对中短期的财政可持续造成负面影响;第二,疫情对财政可持续性的影响随疫情规模递增;第三,在不同的重大疫情划分标准,以及不同的财政可持续性指标下,上述结论均成立;第四,重大疫情通过财政收支两方面的因素对财政可持续性造成双重冲击。本文强调重大疫情冲击对财政可持续性的持续负面影响,这对统筹财政发展和财政安全具有重要的政策含义。

Assessing the fiscal consequences of epidemics(and pandemics)is as difficult as it is important.We examined the average impact of epidemics on fiscal sustainability by using the 1990-2018 cross-country panel data and comparative case studies.To tackle the endogenous problem,we applied the synthetic control method proposed by Abadie et al.(2010)and constructed the counterfactual for each epidemic-hit economy.Results show that only major epidemics had a negative effect on fiscal sustainability in both the short and long runs,which is consistent with the predictions of standard macroeconomic models.Our findings provide a new explanation,which is called“fiscal capacity trap”to the puzzle of why some low-and middle-income countries are stuck in the(medical)poverty trap.This paper also discusses the policy implications of our research for both developed and developing countries in the post-Covid era.