Preparations of the State Audit Office of Hungary for the Analysis of the Macroeconomic Risks to the State Budget

The President of the State Audit Office of Hungary (SAO), in his capacity as a member of the Fiscal Council, will rely on the knowledge gathered by the auditors during their on-site audits aimed at the establishment of the opinion of the SAO on the budget appropriation bill, and in the course of other audits. The Research Institute of the SAO contributes to the formulation of a wellfounded opinion on the credibility and feasibility of the draft budget by preparing a fiscal risk analysis. The fiscal risk analysis primarily examines whether • the government’s macroeconomic projection contains elements of excessive risk, • the projections of the various factors constitute a consistent system, and • the planned appropriations of the fiscal revenues and expenditures that highly depend on the changes in macroeconomic parameters are in conformity with the macroeconomic projections of the government. In addition to outlining the method of risk analysis, the article provides several examples to describe how the development trends of the Hungarian economy in the last 15–20 years influenced the macroeconomic environment of the state budget.