At the period-end of Q1 2020, the federal budget ran a slight surplus, however it was a temporary result because oil and gas revenues go into the budget in a timely manner and they record a downturn against Q1 2019. Non-oil and gas revenues although went up but that was due to the fact that they...

According to the results of H1 2021, the federal budget revenues exceeded the level of 2019, hitting 20.9% of GDP. The main contribution to this outcome was made by an increase in VAT receipts, primarily due to an increase in the consumption of nonfood products with a slight increase in the...

In 2015, the federal budget was executed with a deficit of 2.7% of GDP (in 2014, 0.5% of GDP). Compared to 2014, revenues have fallen significantly – by 2.0 p.p. of GDP, expenditure volume has gone up slightly – by 0.2 p.p. of GDP. The year 2016 and the following medium-term period can...

This paper describes the budgetary reforms that took place over the last 20 years in Latin America. Using a newly developed index of budgetary institutions, it shows that numerical limits, procedural rules, and transparency help to explain fiscal results in Latin America

Rainy Day Funds (RDFs) have an important role in the USA. They allow States - which usually have rules requiring a balanced budget for current revenue and spending - to limit pro-cyclical fiscal policies. This paper examines the possible role of RDFs in the European fiscal framework. The...

This paper investigates the heterogenous effects of budget balance rules on fiscal policy in a large sample of countries. To derive country-specific treatment effects of fiscal rules and conduct inference, we use a Synthetic Difference-in-Differences Method. Our results indicate that countries...

The key parameters of the federal budget showed faster growth of revenues over expenditures at the end of Q1 2017 compared with Q1 2016. Thus revenues increased by 2.7 p.p. of GDP as budget expenditures gained 0.8 p.p. of GDP. As a result, the budget deficit was curtailed to 1.4% of GDP and the...

The paper focuses on issues related to the procedure for determining the different types of budget balance in compliance with the consolidated fiscal programme (CFP) and the national budget, and their economic interpretation. The paper also specifies that the numeric value which states the...

The European Union's constitutional balanced-budget amendment, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP), dictates that EU member states keep their budget deficits within three percent of GDP and that government debt be kept at or below 60 percent of GDP. After 20 years, unintended consequences of the...

This paper discusses an alternative route to a balanced budget, namely through debt control. Two models are compared: the debt brake which has been used in Switzerland since 2003 and the debt limitation model proposed by Compact for America. The paper concludes that the former, while apparently...