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Observed random walk behaviour of a tax rate does not necessarily support the tax smoothing hypothesis though the latter implies the former. This article presents a direct test of tax smoothing by showing that if the tax smoothing hypothesis holds then the future tax rate should cointegrate with the current permanent government expenditure rate even though the tax rate is a random walk. This test is a direct and robust test of a number of ‘random walk models’ available in the literature. This procedure also enables us to differentiate among ‘strong tax smoothing’, ‘weak tax smoothing’ and ‘no-tax smoothing’, all of which are consistent with the random walk behaviour of a tax rate. Application of this test to Australia, Canada, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK and the US show evidence in support of weak forms of tax smoothing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The academic literature has focused largely on testing for long-run fiscal sustainability. In this exercise we formulate a flexible regression model that can be used to assess the sustainability of a more recent build-up of fiscal deficits and debt that would be of major concern to policy makers. The analysis of US data shows that, after adjusting for some fundamentals, the gross Federal debt-income ratio has been growing at an unsustainable rate of 4 % per year since 2007. The net debt-income ratio does not show such a significant trend. Since not all government assets are readily available to reduce debt, significant positive trends in the gross debt-income ratio calls for policy actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the trade linkages and degree of export competitiveness between Singapore, China and India. Design/methodology/approach - Balassa's export performance index and the dynamic RCA index was adopted, as suggested by Kreinin and Plummer to identify the revealed comparative advantage (RCA) of the above countries in industrial products by SITC 1- and 2-digit levels. The Spearman's rank correlation coefficient is used to identify the degree of complementarity between RCA indices. Findings - Given the abundant resources, China and India have comparative advantage in a broad range of manufactured goods as compared to Singapore. From the disaggregated analysis at 2-digit level, the paper finds that the Singapore and China exports are complements, although the degree of complementarity has being declining over time. Meanwhile, Singapore and India exports are found to be stronger complements and stable over time. The results also show that China and India exports are strong substitutes. The paper also finds that the export specialization of China and India has experienced significant changes and shifting to new export products over time. Originality/value - Given the recent trade agreements between China and Singapore and India and Singapore, it is important to examine the trade linkages (complementarity/substitutability of trade) between these countries. The paper highlights the importance of China and India in complementing countries such as Singapore as it climbs the technological ladder to maintain its competitiveness in the world market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]