Medium-term approaches to budgeting are now common in OECD countries and are being adopted increasingly by developing countries. This reflects a realisation that the annual approach to budget making actually undermines budgetary performance, contributing to fiscal instability and, perhaps even...

The main features of China’s current sub-national finance arrangements date back to the 1994 tax reform. China has a multi-level government structure that shares national tax revenues through a system of tax sharing and transfers, and divides spending assignments and responsibilities. Local...

The main features of China’s current sub-national finance arrangements date back to the 1994 tax reform. China has a multi-level government structure that shares national tax revenues through a system of tax sharing and transfers, and divides spending assignments and responsibilities. Local...

This proposal involves the establishment of ‘welfare accounts’ for every person in a country. There are four accounts: a retirement account (covering pensions), an unemployment account (covering unemployment support), a human capital account (covering education and training), and a health...

The purpose of this study is to examine the medium-term budget planning process in Ukraine and the extent to which this approach is used within the environmental sector. It aims to assist the Ukrainian government to integrate environmental programmes more effectively into overall programming,...

This paper studies the economic impacts of carbon pricing. Exploiting institutional features of the European carbon market and high-frequency data, I document that a tighter carbon pricing regime leads to higher energy prices, lower emissions and more green innovation. This comes at the cost of...

The performance of the capital budget has been a subject of debate between the legislative and executive arms of the Nigerian government since 1999. Available statistics suggest that the annual budget has not been able to improve the lives of Nigerians over the past several years because of the...

This paper analyses the main features of Iceland’s public expenditure and addresses some key policy issues. While overall public spending is not high compared with Iceland’s Nordic neighbours, other OECD countries have made more progress in reining it in. Budget consolidation efforts and...

This paper investigates why central governments in some countries (especially the UK and Austria) have moved from a cash budgeting system to accrual budgeting, while others (particularly Belgium and Portugal) continue to use cash budgeting, given that both groups of countries share that their...

Economic growth is projected to be strengthening from mid-2011 onwards, but will be insufficient to restore the sustainability of public finances. The Belgian strategy to prefund ageing costs by generating fiscal surpluses to bring down public debt was derailed by the global crisis. Restoring...