El día de ayer, el
FMI da a concer el reporte sobre México que se realiza de manera programada. Existen varios temas y puntos que valen la pena comentar, pero lo haré en otra ocasión. En general el reporte es positivo reconociendo los avances del páis en materia macroeconómica y sus respuestas a la crisis actual. Al mismo tiempo alerta sobre los riesgos que existen, en particular el financiero y cambiario en virtud de las condiciones de los mercados en este momento.
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Sin embargo me llama la atención un aspecto sobre sus recomendaciones de política fiscal que reproduzco a continuación
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40. Finally, the staff and the authorities discussed the possibility of eventually refining the fiscal policy framework. The balanced budget rule has a number of advantages and is supportive of fiscal discipline, but some features may be procyclical in nature or do not always assure the operation of automatic stabilizers. Consideration could be given to a rule that would allow greater, and more systematic, smoothing of expenditure in response to cyclical fluctuations (across budget years) in output and the tax base. This would help smooth the business cycle in a credibility-consistent manner
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49. Assuring the fiscal space for new public investment and key social expenditures is another key challenge. Fiscal space is projected to come under pressure over the mediumterm, as oil revenue falls, and pension costs rise. This highlights the importance of achieving the authorities’ goals for tax administration gains and restraint of current expenditure. Other policies to raise revenue or cut untargeted subsidies may become necessary. The constraints to managing the economic downturn within the current balanced budget rule suggest the possibility of eventually moving to a cyclically-adjusted fiscal balance target. In addition, the likely increase in contingent fiscal liabilities because of the crisis, underscores the need to continue enhancing the analysis of fiscal risks, including at the aggregate public sector level
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En concreto, el análisis del FMI señala el inconveniente de manejar la política fiscal con la regla actual de saldo público balanceado debido a su carácter pro cíclico y recomiendo considerar la utilización de otra regla como la ajustada al ciclo para darle mayor carácter de estabilizador automático o contracíclico.
Este punto lo he venido señalando desde hace ya varios años, tanto en mis columnas, como en conferencias y en mi investigación académica, como lo acabo de volver a comentar en un post
Multipliers and the Role of Government a raíz de un comentario de Mark Thoma en su Blog.
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The structural balance, in particular, has several key characteristics that make it very attractive for Latin American economies in general and the Mexican in particular. It helps the government detect if a change in fiscal policy is needed in order to achieve the medium and longer term objectives: on one hand maintain fiscal sustainability and, on the other, stabilizing the economy. At the same time this indicator could help maintain the trust of international organizations, capital markets and both domestic and foreign investors. ..… A second great virtue of this indicator…..is that it can be used to establish a rule limiting the structural budget to GDP ratio, and therefore, work as an automatic stabilizer of the economy. To comply with this rule, during recessions the government must have a more expansionary fiscal policy that stimulates aggregate demand and, during expansions, a more restrictive one that contracts aggregate demand….”
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probablemnte ahora que lo dice el FMI lo consideren una opcipón viable.... creo que vale la penad discutirlo seriamente.... en el fondo lo que debe destacarse es la necesidad de generar un esquema de estabilizadores automáticos en nuestra economía que son muy limitados ahora.
En la gráfica vemos cuatros países industrializados, dos tradicionalmente superavitarios y dos deficitarios.
