Adjusting the budget balance for the business cycle: the EU methodology

The cyclically-adjusted budget balance (CAB) is the backbone of the EU framework of fiscal surveillance, both in its preventive and corrective arms. The concept corresponds to the budget balance prevailing if the economy was running at potential. After correcting for the one-off and temporary measures, it is called structural budget balance and used to assess the fiscal policy stance. This paper presents the EU methodology for computing the CAB. It derives the new value of the budgetary semi-elasticities following the recent revision of individual revenue and expenditure elasticities by the OECD and shows the effect of the revised elasticities on the CAB.