Economic and Political Analysis of Budget Deficit in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Hsin-fang Tsai, 蔡馨芳
• Other Authors: Jen-Hui Hsu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/56517325157695655959

博士 === 世新大學 === 行政管理學研究所(含博、碩專班) === 99 === Since the outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008, European countries and many others around the world have been facing recession challenge. In order to save the financial system that almost paralyzed, governments had to adopt aggressive revitalization strategies for banks and industries. These discretionary fiscal policies;however, increased the financial burden on governments, and caused negative and long-term impacts on financial stability. Due to the overall economic and political environment, demographically and democratically, Taiwan's long-term financial situation reveals the tendency of rigidities and structural budget deficit. The purpose of this study is as follows: 1) to measure the size of Taiwan's structural deficit; 2) to verify the level of fiscal sustainability as a basis for continued policies; 3)to develop a new generation of budget theory via new institutionalism perspective. These efforts would help describe and explain the structure of expenditure rigidities and long-term fiscal imbalance effectively. By adopteing the OECD model to measure structural deficit and econometric techniques of time series analysis to verify the fiscal variables in Taiwan, the researcher found that the average of structural deficit as a percentage of GDP is 4.1 percent in Taiwan during 1992 and 2008. Comparing to the overall structural deficit in OECD countries, 3%, the figure is higher in Taiwan. The number shows that the situation of fiscal rigidity in Taiwan is quite serious and must be closely observed. Moreover, empirical results of time series data of Taiwan after 1989 also reveal that revenue and expenditure variables have been unable to meet the intertemporal equilibrium condition. Our Government should review the need for fiscal policy changes consistently and carefully to ensure the fiscal sustainability. Four bodies of theories are applied in the explanation of the phenomenon of fiscal imbalances. In order to explore the explanatory power of fiscal imbalances with the lens of new institutionalism, the researcher also employs common resource theory to describe the authority of competition for limited financial resources. The theory is also able to explain the trend of deficit expansion in Taiwan. Agent theory explains why Legislature cannot establish an appropriate budget decision-making mechanism due to the high cost of supervision caused by information asymmetry. Short-term effectiveness of macro-budgeting system might be based on transaction costs theory that can effectively discourse the gradual increase of social welfare spending in Taiwan.