ANALYSIS OF TWIN DEFICIT PROBLEM AND FELDSTEIN-HORIOKA HYPOTHESIS: AN EMPIRICAL INVESTIGATION FOR OECD COUNTRIES

The twin deficit hypothesis suggests that there is a relationship between the budget deficit and the current account deficit. The traditional Keynesian Approach emphasizes that budget deficits resulted in the current account deficit. On the other hand, the Ricardian Equivalence Approach argues that there is no relationship between budget deficits and current account deficit. In this study, the validity of the twin deficit hypothesis and Feldstein Horioka (1980) hypothesis is analyzed using both the Breaking Periods of the Westerlund-Edgerton Breaking Cointegration Test (2008) and the Dumitrescu & Hurlin (2012) Panel Causality Test. According to the cointegration and causality analyzes, it is concluded that there is a long-term relationship between budget deficits and current account deficits. This result supports the Traditional Keynesian Approach. Furthermore, it is seen that there is a two-way relationship between budget deficits and current account deficits. Long term coefficients were obtained by using the AMG test. When the panel coefficient results are considered, it is seen that the twin deficit hypothesis is valid, but the results are obtained contrary to the analysis found by Feldstein Horioka (1980). However, when the individual countries are examined, it is seen that the twin deficit hypothesis applies to some countries, and the twin divergence hypothesis applies to some other countries. Besides, it is understood that the study results do not support the Feldstein-Horioka (1980) hypothesis.

Keywords:

Twin Deficit Hypothesis, Feldstein Horioka Hypothesis, Budget Deficits Dumitrescu and Hurlin Panel Causality Test, Westerlund-Edgerton Breaking Cointegration Test,

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