Mario Draghi, presidente do BCE Fonte: Bloomberg
O BCE entrou na guerra dos multiplicadores esta semana dando mais um contributo para validar a hipótese de “Multiplicador é o que um economista quiser“. Tal como o FMI e Comissão Europeia, o banco central também usou uma caixa de um documento oficial para dar a sua opinião sobre os impactos da austeridade no crescimento (Ver caixa 6 do boletim mensal). Frankfurt alinha com Bruxelas contra a posição de Washington: é simplista argumentar que a actividade económica na Europa está a abrandar “apenas” pela consolidação orçamental e os multiplicadores dificilmente chegarão aos níveis defendidos pelo FMI, mostra a investigação do banco central. Em todo o caso, sublinha o BCE, o que conta é o longo prazo. E aí os efeitos são positivos. Aqui ficam alguma passagens do texto do BCE.
with regard to the policy impact, the recent decline in confidence and ensuing economic deterioration, in particular, cannot be solely attributed to the impact of fiscal consolidation and, thus, be taken as evidence for higher fiscal multipliers, as some analyses have recently suggested. There have been many other factors at work (e.g. oil price and exchange rate developments) and disentangling their sometimes complex interaction – including in the present analysis – is a daunting task
While the short-term effects of consolidation need to be taken into account, what is most important is the contribution of consolidation to long-term fiscal sustainability. Excessive focus on the short term could lead to a repeat of past policy errors, with debt ratios failing to stabilise quickly enough and adjustment processes being more protracted and difficult than necessary.
fiscal consolidation has, in general, a negative effect on GDP in the short run, with the size of short-term multipliers varying quite substantially across the different fi scal instruments. The negative effect is most pronounced in the case of imperfect credibility, for example, if markets initially disbelieve the government’s commitment to fully implement the announced consolidation measures.
Over the longer run, fiscal consolidation has sizeable benefits, not only in terms of fiscal sustainability but also when measured in terms of GDP (see Chart B). The size of the long-run multiplier is independent of the degree of credibility.
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