The sovereign debt problems in European countries have increased the interest in fiscal watchdogs. This paper discusses the world’s oldest fiscal watchdog, CPB Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB). Read also the <a href="http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/7929" target="_blank">article</a> at "VoxEU.org" , a <a href="http://mostlyeconomics.wordpress.com/2012/04/23/the-worlds-oldest-fiscal-watchdog-cpb-netherlands-bureau-for-economic-policy-analysis/" target="_blank">blog</a> at "Mostly Economics" and...

Major features of the Dutch fiscal framework are the trend-based fiscal framework with real net expenditure ceilings for the whole term of government, the role of independent organisations like the Central Planning Bureau (CPB), Statistics Netherlands and the Netherlands Court of Audit, and the...

The history of the Netherlands reveals major shifts from centralisation of government tasks towards decentralisation and vice versa. In the 17th century, the Republic of United Provinces was the first federal state in modern history. Many transformations later, the Kingdom of the Netherlands...

CPB forecasts for the next year and for the next period of government should be seen as well-motivated estimates based on all recent information, plausible assumptions and expected trends. These assumptions and trends are partly based on econometric estimation methods and insights from economic...