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This paper examines how the adoption of a fiscal rule affects the sustainability of fiscal policy in two OECD countries; Australia and Sweden. While recent fiscal reforms undertaken in both these countries are useful for ensuring the sustainability of government budgets, there are a few differences. In Australia, we show that government revenues are not necessarily growing at a faster rate than government expenditures, at least from the viewpoint of a statistical long-run relationship. In contrast, in Sweden, we show the reform is more beneficial for the attainment of a budget surplus.

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This study examines the effects of government investment on private capital formation, considering both regional and sectoral distinctions in Japan. The empirical results show that a crowding-out effect is observed in rural areas for several industries that contribute to regional economic growth. This suggests that the allocation of public stimulus investment packages to stagnant regions in Japan might act as a regional growth constraint as well as an obstacle to the capital formation, and stagnant regions cannot evade the stagnation even if the central government plans economic stimuli toward such regions, including public investment.