Government Finance Statistics in the Countries of the Former Soviet Union : Compilation and Methodological Issues

This paper examines compilation issues affecting government finance statistics (GFS) in the Baltics, the Russian Federation and other states of the former Soviet Union (the FSU countries). It finds that there are several major problems affecting the use of FSU fiscal reports as source documents for compilation of GFS data. These include the inadequate coverage of the data in the fiscal reports, the structure of the classification codes, and the level of aggregation in fiscal reports. The paper also examines a number of methodological issues and suggests appropriate treatments for certain types of transactions found in the FSU countries. Finally, the paper identifies priority areas for the future development of GFS reporting systems for these countries. A supplementary paper provides bridge tables between the fiscal classification codes of selected FSU countries and the GFS classification codes; that paper is available from the author on request