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Old-age pensions are the most widespread social security programmes around the world that in many countries account for a huge part of the national budget. Based on the PENLEG dataset (Pension Legi...

Nach Ansicht der führenden deutschen Wirtschaftsforschungsinstitute bricht die Konjunktur in Deutschland als Folge der Corona-Pandemie drastisch ein. Um die Infektionswelle abzubremsen, hat der Staat die wirtschaftliche Aktivität hierzulande stark eingeschränkt. Deshalb dürfte das Bruttoinlandsprodukt 2020 um 4,2 % schrumpfen. Die Rezession hinterlässt deutliche Spuren auf dem Arbeitsmarkt und im Staatshaushalt. In der Spitze wird die Arbeitslosenquote auf 5,9 % und die Zahl der Kurzarbeiter auf 2,4 Mio. hochschnellen. Die finanzpolitischen Stabilisierungsmaßnahmen führen 2020 zu einem Rekorddefizit im gesamtstaatlichen Haushalt von 159 Mrd. Euro. Nach dem Shutdown wird sich die Konjunktur schrittweise erholen. Entsprechend fällt der Anstieg des Bruttoinlandsprodukts 2021 mit 5,8 % kräftig aus. Mit dieser Prognose sind erhebliche Abwärtsrisiken verbunden, etwa weil sich die Pandemie deutlich langsamer abschwächen lässt, oder weil das Wiederhochfahren der wirtschaftlichen Aktivität schlechter gelingt als angenommen bzw. eine erneute Ansteckungswelle auslöst. According to the leading German economic research institutes, the German economy is experiencing a drastic slump as a result of the corona pandemic. In order to slow down the wave of infection, the state has severely restricted economic activity in Germany. As a result, GDP is expected to shrink by 4.2% this year. The recession is leaving clear traces on the labour market and the national budget. At its peak, the unemployment rate will soar to 5.9% and the number of short-time workers to 2.4 million. This year, the fiscal policy stabilisation measures will lead to a record deficit in the general government budget of 159 billion euro. After the shutdown, the economy will gradually recover. Accordingly, the increase in GDP next year will be strong at 5.8%. This forecast is associated with considerable downside risks, e.g. because the pandemic can be slowed faster or because the recovery of economic activity will be less successful than expected or there may be a new wave of infection.

As Russia’s agri-food exports have increased in recent years, the role of food exports has evolved from being negligible at the beginning of the 2000s to almost 30 percent of agricultural production in recent years. Agri-food exports account for a substantial amount of growth in the agricultural sector. The contribution of food exports to the national economy, however, is minor. Food exports’ net contribution to the national budget is about zero. Technical advances suggest that the role of agricultural exports in the national economy will keep gradually growing but will remain a secondary factor in national welfare.

This article investigates the effects of performance-based budgeting (PBB) adoption on the spending of the central government in eleven Asian countries over an 18-year period. The theoretical argum...

This paper estimates the effects of fiscal stimulus on economic activity using a novel database on large fiscal expansions for 17 OECD countries for the period 1960–2006. The database is constructed by combining the statistical approach to identifying large shifts in fiscal policy with narrative evidence from contemporaneous policy documents. When correctly identified, large fiscal stimulus packages are found to have strong and persistent expansionary effects on economic activity, with a multiplier of 1 or above. The effects of stimulus are largest in slumps and smallest in booms.

After experiencing a lack of political interest for financial and performance information in the Dutch House of Representatives, the author, a member of parliament, introduced a systematic approach for parliamentarians to review the country’s national budget and accounts. Drawing on corporate experience, the approach is a parliamentary version of a corporate audit committee working with a standardized review questionnaire. It gained wide support and is now used by several parliamentary committees. Nevertheless, the author raises various questions to the public accounting and control research community to improve the method and ensure its long-term use by politicians.

In the paper based on the authors' approach to the definition of strategies for fair and effective social compensation, as well as proposed methodology for calculating the indicators of social compensation strategies feasibility, the conclusions regarding macroeconomic conditions of selecting a state participation program in the process of economic achievements converting into social conditions were done, recommendations on modernization the social compensation policy in the dynamics of integrating markets were also offered.

The investigation analyzes the approach of the fiscal policy in Venezuela for the period 2000-2016, determining the effectiveness of the same in the management of the fiscal de-ficit, tax base and fiscal income, based on data published by ONAPRE (Oficina Nacional de Presupuesto) and the BCV (Banco Central de Venezuela, 2016). The study is based on the theory of the Laffer Curve (1986). The methodological approach is analytical and as-sumes a documentary research design. The results corroborate that the increase in the tax base increases the fiscal deficit and decreases the fiscal income in real terms. La investigación analiza el enfoque de la política fiscal en Venezuela para el período 2000-2016, determinando su efectividad en cuanto al manejo del déficit fiscal, base impositiva e ingreso fiscal, con base a datos publicados por la Oficina Nacional de Presupuesto – ONAPRE y el Banco Central de Venezuela (BCV, 2016). El estudio se basa en la teoría de la Curva de Laffer (1986). El enfoque metodológico es analítico y asume un diseño de investigación documental. Los resultados corroboran que el aumento de la base impositiva acrecienta el déficit fiscal, y disminuye el ingreso fiscal en términos reales.

This chapter focuses on whether fiscal decentralisation can help to promote the sustainability of education funding. The linkage between fiscal decentralisation and education expenditure and performance is examined using data from OECD countries. The results clearly show the positive effect of fiscal decentralisation on education expenditure. In addition, the results reveal how regional disparities in the distribution of the total national budget, affects education expenditure. The findings suggest that fiscal decentralisation and balanced regional development may increase the solidity of education expenditure. Regional disparities reduce the efficient allocation of the national budgets and may cause declining education expenditure. This empirical study confirms that OECD countries tend to spend more money on education in order to provide educational opportunitites for lower income populations, when income inequality worsens.

The Nigerian government uses food import prohibition as part of policies that seeks to protect existing domestic producers and reduce the country's dependence on imports. This paper argues that such policies have negative effects on net consumers of such products due to higher prices. With 70 percent of poor households' budget spent on food, and about 13 percent of the total budget devoted to products subject to import bans, poor households are vulnerable to such trade policies. Prices of some import prohibited food products are found to be higher than what they would be in the absence of such bans. The elimination of import bans is estimated to reduce national poverty rates by as much as 2.6 percentage points.

This paper investigates the economic efficiency of Russian public expenditures in 2002–2016 by estimation of their multiplicative impact on the GDP level and economic growth. We use the empirical methodology based on Corsetti et al. (2012). We estimate a number of fiscal multipliers: on national security, law-enforcement activity, national defense, education, health care and sport and road infrastructure. For assessing the influence of budget structure on long-term economic growth rates, we estimate the SVAR model in which GDP growth is a structural variable. The research shows a positive influence of budgetary resources redistribution from non-productive government expenditures to productive ones on economic development.

The article considers the role of national budget in Russian socio-economic development. The author analyzes the Russian budget of the last decade and comes to the conclusion that it is not efficient because there is no long term planning, the allocation of responsibilities between the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Finance is not optimal, and because the government is trying to stimulate economic growth without resorting to deficit budget.

Every year governments spend their national budget on public health in order to reduce financial burden of individuals on health. Although it has been widely believed that the increase of public expenditure on health decreases private health expenditure, it has not been proved by analysis with real data. For better understanding, we conducted an empirical study on the real data of 17 OECD countries-Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The panel Granger-causality test is used to verify the cause-and-effect relationship between the two expenditures. As a result, public expenditure on health has a 3 to 4 year-lagged negative effect on private health expenditure in the cases of the 16 countries except for the United States.

The aim of this paper is to find the trough price corridor that the current decline in crude oil price would attain and the length of time it would take before it regains recovery. Following Kanda (2011) simple calibration and geometric progression were used for the analysis of secondary data collected. It was found that crude oil price would continue to decline until it reaches $52.2pb (with a band of ±$10.2pb) and then revive after a month, 2 weeks and 4 days from December 2014. The paper concludes that it would be safe to set the crude oil benchmark for Nigeria’s 2015 budget within a corridor of $42pb to $62.4pb to allow for savings in the Sovereign Wealth Fund.

This study aims to develop an understanding of government funding allocated to educational resources in basic education in South Africa. Linked to claims about potential cost savings associated with using Open Educational Resources (OER),The main intention was to establish a benchmark of public spending on educational resources in order to be able to ascertain the economic benefits of using OER. As such, the following research questions are considered: How much public money is currently being spent on educational materials in basic education in South Africa? How much public money is currently being spent on OER in basic education in South Africa? Do OER represent a cost reduction with regard to educational resource acquisition in basic education in South Africa? The study is comprised of a desk review and document analysis of publicly available information on expenditure in South African basic education. This approach was adopted in order to develop a conceptual understanding of South African government funding allocation for general educational resources as well as OER. The findings highlight the fact that individual provinces, rather than central government, have the authority to determine budget allocations for the procurement and delivery of what are termed Learning and Teaching Support Materials (LTSM). Although each provincial Department of Education budget includes a line item for LTSM, these are not sufficiently disaggregated to determine the actual expenditure on specific categories, such as textbooks, in order to establish a benchmark for potential cost savings of OER. The findings also illustrate a possible cost-recovery model based on the local Siyavula open textbook initiative. In order to make claims about OER and their cost-saving potential in the South African education system, national and provincial government budgets will need to be disaggregated to a more granular level and made more readily available for in-depth investigation of budgetary allocations.

Background Despite a non-decreasing HIV epidemic, international donors are soon expected to withdraw funding from Kazakhstan. Here we analyze how allocative, implementation, and technical efficiencies could strengthen the national HIV response under assumptions of future budget levels. Methodology We used the Optima model to project future scenarios of the HIV epidemic in Kazakhstan that varied in future antiretroviral treatment unit costs and management expenditure—two areas identified for potential cost-reductions. We determined optimal allocations across HIV programs to satisfy either national targets or ambitious targets. For each scenario, we considered two cases of future HIV financing: the 2014 national budget maintained into the future and the 2014 budget without current international investment. Findings Kazakhstan can achieve its national HIV targets with the current budget by (1) optimally re-allocating resources across programs and (2) either securing a 35% [30%–39%] reduction in antiretroviral treatment drug costs or reducing management costs by 44% [36%–58%] of 2014 levels. Alternatively, a combination of antiretroviral treatment and management cost-reductions could be sufficient. Furthermore, Kazakhstan can achieve ambitious targets of halving new infections and AIDS-related deaths by 2020 compared to 2014 levels by attaining a 67% reduction in antiretroviral treatment costs, a 19% [14%–27%] reduction in management costs, and allocating resources optimally. Significance With Kazakhstan facing impending donor withdrawal, it is important for the HIV response to achieve more with available resources. This analysis can help to guide HIV response planners in directing available funding to achieve the greatest yield from investments. The key changes recommended were considered realistic by Kazakhstan country representatives.

Los gobiernos, en la búsqueda del desarrollo y el crecimiento económico de su respectivo país, buscan la manera de garantizarlos a través de la elaboración de sus planes de desarrollo y de sus presupuestos anuales, apoyándose en sucesivas reformas tributarias. En Colombia, caso que nos ocupa, se analiza el papel que han tenido las reformas tributarias aprobadas entre los años 1986-2014 y la forma como participan en la ejecución del Presupuesto de la Nación (PN), identificando si estas reformas están más inclinadas al sostenimiento del Estado que a la propia motivación para lograr el anhelado crecimiento económico. Governments, in the search for development and the economic growth of their corresponding countries, attempt to guarantee them through the design of development plans and their yearly budgets, drawing on successive tax reforms. In Colombia, which is our case, the role that the passed tax reforms that have been played, between 1986 and 2014, is analyzed, as well as the manner how they participate in the implementation of the National Budget (NB), identifying if these reforms are much more prone to the maintenance of the State than to the own motivation in order to achieve the desired economic growth.

The purpose of this article was to show that the existence of ASIF, as an important element of the social insurance system for farmers in Poland is not unique on a European scale. There were shown relationships ASIF with the budget and the characteristics of social insurance of farmers in selected countries of the European Network of Agricultural Social Protection Systems (ENASP)

This article suggests a game theory analysis of the interaction between Israeli politicians and bureaucrats regarding the national budget process since the 1980s. During the 1970s and 1980s new structural conditions created new formal and informal rules that weakened Israeli politicians’ bargaining position vis-à-vis the Ministry of Finance (MOF). The 1985 Israeli Economic Stabilization Plan not only changed the formal political institutions, but also created new informal institutions. Under the new circumstances, Israeli politicians can rarely challenge the MOF in the political bargaining process. Given that the MOF officials are aware of Israel’s internal processes and public opinion, attempts by Israeli politicians to create the impression that they are willing to challenge the MOF officials are unlikely. We demonstrate that this situation may ultimately lead to a sub-optimal equilibrium for Israel’s social welfare because the balance of power between the players favors one dominant side – the MOF officials. Points for practitioners This article provides insights into how institutional change and various formal and informal political strategies are played out in budgetary decision-making. When structural conditions create new formal and informal rules that weaken politicians’ bargaining position vis-à-vis the Ministry of Finance, politicians may find it very hard to challenge the Ministry of Finance officials. The results may include the creation of a significant gap between public opinion and the socioeconomic policy in practice. The key for preventing such scenarios is making sure, via strong institutions, that the balance of power between the players will not favor one dominant side.

Every developed country other than the United States offers parental leave for mothers and fathers paid out of the national budget. The authors say the payments directly reduce child poverty. Is it too costly for the United States? These two economists think not.

Recent research suggests that the Chilean Congress is marginalised in the policymaking process, especially when setting the budget. This paper argues that previous studies have overlooked the fact that the legislature uses two amendment tools – specifications and marginal notes – to increase the national budget and reallocate resources within ministries. This behaviour contradicts the constitution, which only allows Congress to reduce the executive's budget bill. To test this empirically, a pooled two-stage time-series cross-sectional analysis is conducted on ministries for the years 1991–2010. The findings clarify how the legislature surpasses its constitutional limits and demonstrate that specifications are useful to predict when Congress increases or decreases a ministry's budget.

In any society, education is the means, by which citizens are equipped with the necessary attitudes, knowledge and skill that will enable them, contribute meaningfully to national and human development. The reason for this assertion is not far-fetched. This is because development in the socio-economic, technological and cultural advancement of any nation depends on the level of education of its citizens. In addition productivity improvement is a function of the quality of education provided for the citizenry. However the Nigerian education system within the last decade seemed to have been infected with the malaise (problems) of movement without motion, growth without development and quantity without quality. Hence the consistent declining forms of the Nigerian Educational System. President Goodluck Jonathan"s proposed N426.53 billion for the Education sector in the 2013 budget has been greeted with commendations from stakeholders in the sector, who described it as a step in the right direction towards meeting the 26 per cent UNESCO minimum recommendation for education in every country"s budget. It implies that in 2013, education will gulp 8.7 per cent of the national budget. This is the first time since independence that the Education sector will top the national budget. There is therefore the need for stepping up the dwindling nation"s education sector to engender greater productivity and meaningful development of both the individual and the Nigerian nation.

Integration of spendings on the agricultural sector in the national budget and the budgets of voivodes in Poland in the long term (2000-2013) The purpose of this article is to identify the areas of integration spendings on the agricultural sector in the national budget and the budgets of voivodes in the years 2000-2013, with an indication of the processes of their complementarity and substitutability. There was analyzed the expenditures of national and the EU budget flowing to the agricultural sector in Poland, showing their significant increase after the Polish integration with the EU. Was noticeable, however, that increasing spendings on the agricultural sector from the national budget could be „enforced” by increasing funding from the EU. This indicates the integrity understood as complementary to each other. Then shown the complementarity and substitutability spendings on the agricultural sector in the central agricultural budgets and the budgets of voivodes with regard to the financing of projects involving EU funds, noting ongoing trends.

How do ministry of Finance (MOF) bureaucrats preserve their dominance in the national budget process? As we all know, MOF bureaucrats are important in politics and policy, we know much less about exactly how they play their role. Political analysis of the interaction between politicians and bureaucrats in the Israeli healthcare policy arena reveals asymmetry of information in favour of the bureaucrats at the MOF. Among others, this asymmetry is also due to a lack of transparency in the national budgeting process. While presenting the balance of power between the players in the Israeli health policy arena, we point to the MOF bureaucrats as the most dominant players – though their power is not absolute as it always seems. Quite a few indications point at ‘non-democratic’ strategies made by these bureaucrats in their interactions with the other players. The empirical findings show that alongside bureaucrats' expertise, strategies based on concealment, manipulation in presentation of information, lack of tra...

Though well-established in the commercial sector, the use of market-based risk management is not widespread in the public sector, particularly by governments. Recent volatility in food and in energy prices has awakened governments' interest in learning more about how to use these tools, and some countries are beginning to experiment with them. Although it is clear that food price shocks are problematic, many countries have only a partial understanding of the specific exposure to commodity price risk; details about exactly how and where it affects the national budget are critical. To implement the use of market-based tools, it is important to identifying trade-offs between expected cost and risk, and to ensure that there is a strong institutional framework in place to support the strategy.

Not many countries have experienced as fast a growth in the number of local governments as has present day Indonesia. This study examines how territorial splits under new decentralisation policy have effected local development. The paper also critically discusses what needs to change and improve in decentralisation policy to encourage local development. Territorial splits have reinforced spatial fragmentation and ‘local selfishness’, hindering rather than driving local development. Territorial splits have also been a substantial additional burden to the national budget, and have resulted in many conflicts, disputes and tensions at the local level. This paper recommends that there should be a comprehensive review into the practice of territorial splits and suggests that there is a need to make regional mergers a more attractive option for the efficient and effective provision of public services at the local level.

The purpose of this article is to assess budgetary spending targeted agriculture (first pillar) and rural areas (the second pillar) of the CAP in Poland in the long period. there was compared the structures of the EU budget spending and the national for the first and second pillar of the CAP in passing the 2007-2013 financial perspective and was assessed whether there is a convergence pattern of the aid. It shows the differences between the proportions of European and domestic spending for the objectives of the CAP implemented in Poland. Also was identified the existence of convergence between the level of spending for certain titles financed from the national budget and EU.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze critically the evolution of educational reform in Thailand. Three major phases are identified. The special focus of the paper is an assessment of the third reform which began with the passage of the Office of the National Education Commission (ONEC) (2002).Design/methodology/approachThe methodology for the study is mixed methods including document analysis, direct participant observation, and compilation of major statistical performance indicators from diverse sources.FindingsThe success of the most recent reform has been clearly mixed. Major structural and legal changes have occurred but overall system performance remains disappointingly low, despite large Thai educational expenditures as a percent of national budget and the presence of much impressive educational leadership talent. The paper identifies what is called the “Thai educational paradox”. The essence of the paradox is Thailand’s failure to achieve its educational potential. The paper identifies key factors explaining the paradox.Originality/valueThe paper has significant theoretical, policy, and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, the study confirms the persistence of strong regional disparities and a lack of fiscal neutrality associated with a neoliberal model of capitalistic development. From a practical policy perspective, it is imperative for Thailand to improve the overall quality of its educational system and to reduce regional disparities. There have been numerous studies of each of Thailand’s three phases of reform, but this paper’s original contribution is its presentation of a historical, interdisciplinary, and integrated perspective on the evolution of educational reform and the many obstacles associated with its implementation.

The objective of this study is to use both static and dynamic frameworks to compare the benefits that immigrants draw from the public system with their contributions through the taxes that they pay. The main conclusion of this paper is that the impact of immigration on welfare systems is weak. Thus, if we compare, on a given date, immigrants' global contribution to the public administration budget with the volume of transfers they receive, immigrants appear to be relatively favoured by the redistribution system. At the same time, even if immigrants seem to pay less taxes and receive more transfers than natives, the difference in distribution between the two populations, with a higher concentration of immigrants in the active age groups and a sparser concentration among the net beneficiaries of the social transfer system, leads to a slightly positive long-term impact of immigration on public finances. However, the impact of immigration remains very slight compared with the global effort that would have to be undertaken to reduce budgetary imbalances.

Debt-to-GDP ratios have grown to unprecedented levels in many industrialised economies. To combat this threat, the authors call for a global debt brake following the Swiss or German example. The debt brakes should be incorporated into national constitutions and monitored by independent transnational fiscal councils, which should conduct regular evaluations of national budget plans in order to ensure that they meet the requirements stipulated by the debt brake.

This paper analyses Spanish infrastructure policy since the early 1700s: road building in the eighteenth century, railway creation and expansion in the nineteenth, motorway expansion in the twentieth, and high speed rail development in the twenty-first. The analysis reveals a long-term pattern, in which infrastructure policy in Spain has been driven not by the requirements of commerce and economic activity, but rather by the desire to centralise transportation around the country's political capital. As commerce has been unable to sustain the development of this policy, regulation and subsidies from the national budget have regularly been used to decide the priorities regarding infrastructure creation and to fund the development, maintenance, and operation of the networks. When high roads, bridges, canals, etc. are in this manner made and supported by the commerce which is carried on by means of them, they can be made only where that commerce requires them, and consequently where it is proper to make them....

This article investigates changes within national budget by examining actors’ behavioral predilections and the institutional constraints under which they operate. The article presents three theoretical propositions about the influence of attention and institutions on all magnitudes of programmatic budget changes ranging from large cuts to massive expansions. Using quantile regression, the author is able to uncover which distinct processes bear on cuts, stasis, and expansion across spending categories within a budget. An examination of budgetary data from Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States from 1964 to 1999 leads to the conclusion that attention shifts lead to contractions and expansions of budgetary items, whereas preference-based explanations have marginal support. In addition, institutional costs involved in budgetary politics amplify budgetary shifts. The author closes the article by discussing the implications of the findings for partisan theories of government and institutional theories.

During the last decade, Argentina was exposed to two main crises. The first one, was in the beginning of the initial decade of this century, the second one, during the years 2008 and 2009, as a consequence of the financial turbulence, still in course in the World.1 As it is well known, the first crisis concluded in a dramatic situation in terms of economic activity and in both, internal and external indebtedness. The default was a consequence of the crisis, in one hand, and the devaluation of the currency, in the other. Since the year 2002, however, the signs of the recovery of the economy crisis began, and continue throughout the decade, ending in 2010 and in the course of the first months of 2011. Weighing the pros, the main indicators of level of activity showed positive results. Also, during the same period, the primary balance of the national budget showed a favourable surplus, while the Taxes/GDP ratio increased continuously, getting a dramatic improvement that positions the country, together with Brazil, within the highest level of taxation in Latin America. In what follows, I will try to expose briefly some of the indicators showing such evolution in economic and fiscal terms. In the end, I will essay some preliminary conclusions about this process, its weaknesses and virtues. Given that the economic experiences could sometimes shed light on other scenarios, one particular aim will be to imagine particular reflections that would be useful in relationship for further comparative analysis and with the evolution of the economy in countries like Pakistan.

For much of the First Republic, the Italian parliament was notorious for its fiscal irresponsibility. However, using data over a 20-year period we note that the performance of the parliament during the passage of the national budget changed over time. During most of the 1980s the parliament always spent more than the final amount specified in the government's Budget Bill. But this trend slowed towards the late 1980s, and of particular interest is that for several years during the 1990s the parliament actually voted to spend less than the government had originally proposed. We explain this anomaly using institutional theories and contextual explanations.

Pakistan has seen strong economic growth in recent years accompanied by a reduction in poverty. However, growth has been concentrated, which has meant that regional and inter-personal disparities are on the rise. In a contestable political environment, this casts a shadow on the sustainability of high growth. The budget, a corrective instrument, has been subject to boom and bust cycles because of rigid claims, poor tax effort and external shocks, rendering it ineffective in addressing long term priorities. This paper argues that robust budgets for sustained and inclusive growth require government programs to be credible (monitoring and evaluation and public information) and cost effective (streamlined budget cycle, public-private partnerships); this will help increase citizen willingness to pay for public programs via improved tax compliance.

This paper studies optimal capital and labor income taxes when the benefits of public goods are age-dependent. Provided the government can impose a consumption tax, it can attain the first-best resource allocation. This involves the uniform taxation of the cohorts' labor income and a zero capital income tax. With no consumption tax and optimally chosen government spending, labor income should be taxed nonuniformly across cohorts and the capital income tax should be nonzero. Deviations of the public goods from their respective optima create distortions. These affect the labor supply decisions of both cohorts and capital accumulation, providing a further reason to tax (or subsidize) capital income.

The main focus of this paper is the relation between the cyclical components of total revenues and expenditures and the budget balance in France, Germany, Portugal, and Spain. We try to uncover past trends behind the development of public finances that contribute to explaining the current stance of fiscal policy. The disaggregate analysis of fiscal policy in an SVAR that mixes long and short-term constraints allows us to look into the transmission channels of fiscal policy and to derive a model-based indicator of structural balance. The main conclusions are that fiscal slippages are mainly due to reversals in tax policies, which are unmatched by expenditure adjustments. As a consequence, deficits rise when economic conditions worsen but cause a ‘ratcheting up’ in the size of government in economic booms. The Stability and Growth Pact has not eradicated these procyclical policies. Bad policies in good times also contribute to aggregate macroeconomic instability. JEL Classification: E62, E65, E66, H61, H62

The paper is concerned with the interrelationship between the national budget, the role of the State in the economy and the public financial situation existing during different historical periods beginning with the unification of Italy. The paper examines the functions of the national budget during the Liberal, Corporatist and Republican periods, and how these have changed as a result of institutional changes, and developments in the socio-economic situation which have influenced economic policy. We focus particularly on the public accountancy reform of 1923–1924 which, in combination with administrative reform, contained some important innovations. The system that emerged is found to have been clearly connected with that of the previous period, the innovations being based on the tenets of liberal ideology and the efficiency of the public administration. In this context the centralisation of the General Accounting Office in 1923 is seen as the result of actions begun during an earlier period. On ...

The State is a place for some people to realize a better life. One of the most urgent instruments is the existence of government as manager of the State. Through the national budget of a state, it taps revenues and expenditures will be managed in a planned manner with the aim at prosperity of all people. For example, increasing the rate of economic growth (pro-growth), expanding new jobs (pro-job), and improve protection programs for the poor (pro-poor). In the classical discourse, Islamic government that had been present in the scene of history, has also pointed out the state opinion forms. This article briefly describes the ratio of budget revenues and expenditures between Islam and the Indonesian government systemDOI: 10.15408/aiq.v5i2.2120

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity to make some opening remarks on this conference. Budget policy is a recurring theme in my career. In 1975 I started my career at the Ministry of Finance in the Budget Directorate. Later, as director of the CPB – the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis – I participated in the preparation of important reforms in our system of fiscal rules. And now, as Minister of Finance, I am more than ever convinced of the importance of a proper national budget policy. Not – or should I say, not only – because I like figures, but because these figures have a direct and serious impact on the wellbeing of our citizens. Without a sound budget policy there can be no sustainable social welfare system, no funds for a proper education policy, and no base for a durable economic growth. Therefore, I think that the effort to reform and improve national budget systems is one of the best things a social minded government can pursue.

During the implementation of the 1994 Law of Popular Participation (LPP) nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) assumed a new role as intermediaries between the government and the Bolivian population. The law, at the heart of a decentralization program, transferred 20% of the national budget to municipalities, established participatory planning, and mandated oversight by grass-roots territorial organizations. In some cases, NGOs with long-term commitments to an area have served as effective planning agents, successfully assisting a relatively democratic process of decentralization, and using their project-writing expertise to find matching grants to leverage revenue-sharing funds. Perhaps most important, some NGOs have educated residents of small municipalities about their rights to participate in local planning and budgeting. At the same time, rivalries between NGOs, NGO control of planning, and the failure to establish a permanent presence in a municipality have limited NGO effectiveness. Despite these shortcomings, NGOs have the potential to help prevent local elite cooption of the LPP and the corruption found throughout the country as small municipalities develop the technical capacity to direct local development. Examination of the Bolivian experience offers lessons both on the opportunities and on the limitations of NGOs as partners with governments that seek efficient and more equitable solutions to problems of local development. This assessment is particularly important as multilateral donors and institutions have consistently used Bolivia over the past fifteen years to experiment with new policy models which they later apply elsewhere in the developing world.

This study draws lessons for the debate about the proposed partial privatization of Social Security in the United States based on evidence from the United Kingdom. The British case suggests that privatization may lead to a reduction in the pension burden on the national budget if combined with substantial cuts in benefits. Such reforms may have positive effects on the economy, but any such benefits would come at a price that would include much higher administrative costs, exposure to stock market fluctuations, increased inequality, and potentially lower pension benefits for many low-wage workers, particularly women.

As economic integration continues, the countries of southern Europe struggle to promote economic growth while keeping unemployment and national budget deficits at acceptable levels. The economic effects of integration are explored for Italy by estimating demand elasticities for capital, labor, and imported inputs in the context of an aggregate cost function. Our results are consistent with each input pair being substitutes, although domestic capital and labor are closer substitutes than imports and domestic inputs. A high elasticity of inverse output supply of investment goods relative to labor price suggests that Italian labor market reforms are critical to future domestic capital goods production and national growth.

How does the public assess an appropriate financial allocation to science promotion? This article empirically examined the subadditivity effect in the judgment of budgetary allocation. Results of the first experiment showed that the ratio of the national budget allocated for science promotion by participants increased when science was decomposed into more specific categories compared to when it was presented as “science promotion” alone. Consistent with these findings, results of the second experiment showed that the allotment ratio to science promotion decreased when the number of other expenditure items increased. Meanwhile, the third experiment revealed that in the case of a budgetary cutback, the total amount taken from science promotion greatly increased when science was decomposed into subcategories. The subadditivity effect and increase in the total allotment ratio by unpacking science promotion was confirmed by these three experiments not only on budgetary allocation but also on budgetary cutback.

Küreselleşen dünyada ticaret önemli bir yer tutmaktadır. Ulusal ve uluslararası ticaret ekonomide etken bir faktör olarak yer almaktadır. Makro düzeyde ülkelerin milli bütçe dengelerini etkileyebilen ticaret, ihracat ve ithalat olarak Keynesyen milli gelir modelinde de kullanılmaktadır. Bu çalışmanın amacı uluslararası ticaret hacminin ülkelerin coğrafi konumuyla ilgisini incelemektir. Bu çalışmada kümeleme yöntemi kullanılarak ülkeler analiz edilmiş, bunun için “hiyerarşik kümeleme yöntemi” ve “K-Means kümeleme yöntemi” kullanılmıştır. Uluslararası ticaretle ilgili en öne çıkan ülke ABD olurken, daha sonra ise Çin ve Almanya geldiği görülmüştür. Analize nüfus dâhil edildiğinde ise, pozitif uçta Katar, Brunei ve Kuveyt, negatif uçta ise Bermuda, Lüksemburg ve Aruba göze çarpmıştır. Trade keeps important place in the globalized world. National and international trade takes place as an effective factor in the economy. The trade, which can influence the national budget balance of countries at the macro-level, is also used in the Keynesian model of national income as export and import. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between international trading volumes and geographical locations of countries. In this study countries were analyzed using cluster analysis, with both “hierarchical clustering” and “k-means clustering” methods. According to our analysis in the area of international trade the United States is the prominent country, thereafter China and Germany are the follow-ups. When population is included in the analysis, Qatar, Brunei and Kuwait stand out at top of the positive trade- income side, whereas at top of the negative trade-income side Bermuda, Luxembourg and Aruba.

Despite intensive development and implementation of government programs and sector-specific energy policies together with consideration of subsidies elimination as a strategic coal industry priority, governmental grants volumes for this economic activity are growing from year to year. While in 2003 Government cost covering support for coal industry equaled to 0,9 bn UAH, in 2013 Ukrainian Government transferred over 13,3 bn UAH, which is a crippling burden for National Budget. And although coal subsidies elimination process can be considered as a highly complicated and painful, due to resulting social issues, current economic situation even more escalates its necessity. In this paper a computable general equilibrium (CGE) GTAP model is applied to study the consequences and economic effects of coal subsidies elimination in Ukraine.