財政赤字會造成通貨膨脹嗎？動態追蹤資料的分量迴歸分析

經濟理論認為，長期持續的財政赤字將會因貨幣融通而造成通貨膨脹，而且通膨越高的經濟體越容易受到赤字的影響。本文依照Catao and Terrones (2005)的理論模型，以狹義貨幣衡量財政赤字的規模，並據此檢驗1960到2006年間91個國家赤字與通貨膨脹的關係。本文使用Lin (2010)的分量迴歸方法，藉以估計在不同通膨水準下赤字的影響，並且允許兩者之間的動態調整。實證結果發現：當通膨越高，赤字造成的影響將越嚴重；若通膨在低水準，赤字則影響很弱、甚至不會造成任何影響。因此，當通膨越高的時候，維持財政紀律將越能有效達成物價穩定。這層赤字與通膨間關係不會因為考量了其他變數而有所改變。此外，赤字通常在開發中國家影響較強，尤其是在高通膨的時候。最後，在1990到2006年間，卻沒有發現赤字具有任何的通膨效果。

In economic theory, sustained fiscal deficits might cause inflation by means of money creation, and the economy in a higher inflation level would be more strongly impacted by an increase in deficits. Following the theoretical model of Cat\~{a}o and Terrones (2005), I scaled fiscal deficits by narrow money stock and examined the deficit-inflation relationship in 91 countries from 1960 to 2006. A dynamic panel quantile regression of Lin (2010) was employed, which can estimate the impact of fiscal deficits at various inflation levels and allows for a dynamic adjustment. The empirical results show that fiscal deficits will be more serious as inflation rises, and weakly or not related to inflation if it is at a low level. Therefore, fiscal consolidation would be more effective in price stabilization the higher the inflation. Moreover, the results remain robust while taking other possibly inflation-related factors into consideration. Furthermore, the impact of fiscal deficits on inflation is generally greater in developing countries, particularly when inflation is at a high level. Finally, the inflationary effect of deficits is not detected over 1990--2006.