An empirical evaluation of monetary and fiscal policy in Pakistan

This thesis studies the relative roles of monetary and fiscal policies to achieve the basic macroeconomic objectives of stable prices with sustainable growth in Pakistan. Using data from December 1981 till June 2008, the changes in the monetary policy stance are shown to be capable of affecting the domestic price level and output growth. This thesis also tests the fiscal theory of price determination using quarterly data for the sample period 1977q1-2009q4, by investigating the relationship between the fiscal deficit, debt accumulation and inflation dynamics. The estimates reveal that there exists a fiscal dominant regime for most of the sample period since the fiscal authority is insensitive to monetary policy in the sense that neither taxes nor expenditure react (now or in the future) to the changes in the stock of outstanding government debt. It is also found that changes in the primary deficit exert an effect on aggregate demand which is also evidence of an active fiscal policy regime. This study also explores the indirect channels of fiscal regime by including a monetary, real sector, exchange rate and the consolidated budget deficit variables in three different specifications of vector error correction models and finds the monetary and fiscal variables as the key determinants of inflation in Pakistan. It also suggests a positive and significant relationship between the budget deficit and seigniorage revenues, confirming the monetisation of the fiscal deficit and indirect evidence of the fiscal dominance in the economy. In addition, this thesis employs a SVAR specification of exogenous fiscal policy shocks to observe the relative effectiveness of fiscal multipliers and finds their significant role to affect inflation and output in the economy. Finally this study develops and estimates a small macro-econometric model and then it is used to assess the relative performance of the monetary and fiscal policies in Pakistan. Policy simulations suggest that if Pakistan follows a rule based regime then macroeconomic stability can be improved in terms of the stability of output and inflation