Analyzing the Effects of Globalization on the Government Budget Deficit: the Matching Approach

In the process of globalization, various relations, such as the development of financial relations between countries can be considered as financial globalization. Financial globalization refers to the concept of increasing global communication through the expansion of international financial and capital flows. Therefore, it can be said that any financial relationship between countries, through different approaches, leading to the expansion of global communication develops financial globalization. This study focuses on how financial integration policies affect government spending and revenues, and how the outcome of these effects will impact government deficit and public debt. To this end, this paper has compered the budget deficit of 165 countries from OECD and non-OECD members in 2015 through the matching approach using the kernel weights and propensity score. To purify the effects of financial globalization on public debt and to isolate the effects of other variables, influential factors such as per capita domestic production, government spending, taxes, and trade liberalization are considered as a match. The results suggest that financial globalization has led to an increase in the budget deficit, which can be attributed to the reduction of taxes on capital to prevent capital outflow by the governments and better access to the international financial markets to finance further expenditures.