This paper is one of three in this Working Paper Series, along with those by Chouraqui et al. and Blanchard, in which the assessment of fiscal policy is reconsidered. It reviews the question of what type of budget indicators the OECD should compile. Instead of the cyclically-adjusted budget, it...

Boije and Fischer examine the role of fiscal indicators in the Swedish rules based budgetary framework, which requires that the general government budget position show a surplus of 2 per cent of GDP over the cycle. They consider the indicators developed by different institutions for measuring...

Woods examines the role of fiscal indicators in the UK fiscal policy framework. This includes the golden rule and the sustainable investment rule, requiring public sector net debt as a proportion of GDP to be held at a stable and prudent level over the economic cycle. Woods considers the wide...

Indicators of government activity must be carefully designed to be relevant, credible and accountable. Frustration with reform pressures suggests that measures of policy activity are not providing accurate information. In fact, indicators of product or labour market regulation fail to measure...

This paper assesses the usefulness of summary measures of fiscal sustainability for the purpose of multilateral surveillance. An overview of the main conceptual issues is first presented. Next, an assessment is made of the strengths and weaknesses of the summary measures in the context of their...