The draft federal budget 2012 is the second "consolidation budget" after the nadir of the financial and economic crisis. The general government's Maastricht deficit is to decline from 3.6 percent of GDP in 2011 to 3.2 percent in 2012. According to the federal medium-term financial framework for...

According to the draft federal budget for 2012, the general government deficit in the Maastricht definition is to be reduced to 3.2 percent of GDP; the debt-to-GDP ratio will move further up to 74.6 percent. The share of transfers, including retirement payments, in total federal expenditure is...

The draft federal budget for 2013 needs to reconcile a substantial move towards fiscal consolidation with a reinforcement of spending in areas crucial for long-term growth of income and employment. The government debt ratio is expected to peak at 75.4 percent of GDP in 2013 and decline...

WIFO coordinates the interdisciplinary four year research project "Welfare, Wealth and Work for Europe – WWWforEurope" within the 7th Framework Programme funded by the European Commission. The project brings together researchers from 33 scientific institutions in 12 European countries with...

The government debt ratio in Austria will rise above 74 percent of GDP in 2012. The quantifiable costs of the financial market crisis and the global recession account for nearly 7¾ percentage points of this ratio, further discretionary measures and statistical revisions for the last few years...

Measures targeted at the revenue side of the budget can contribute between € 10 and € 28 billion to the consolidation of public finances. This total amount could be reached without harming the economy via an increase of excise taxes, an enhanced taxation of wealth and the abolition of tax...

The Austrian Federal Government has set itself the goal to reduce the Maastricht deficit to 2.7 percent of the GDP by 2013. In the medium term, a consolidation of the public budgets will be necessary to regain room for manoeuvre for budget policy and to avoid undesirable distributive effects of...

Apparently the consolidation programmes that individual EU countries have presented so far broadly tend to take "the easy road". The latter includes short-term cuts in public sector pay, which are easy to push through, but do not lead to a lasting improvement of public finances, as well as an...

There is evidence that a budget consolidation strategy can work with only a small and short lived negative impact on growth. However, this time consolidation is taking place in the aftermath of a deep crisis which had lead to increased levels of uncertainty. In addition the financial sector, as...