According to the data released by the Federal Treasury, at month-end January 2016 the federal budget revenue came to 20.6% of GDP down 5.3 p.p. of GDP against the first month of the previous year. In January 2016 against January 2015, contraction of the federal budget expenditure constituted...

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...

Can the federal budget be constrained using congressionally self-imposed rules? The Budgetary Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA90), in effect from 1992 to 2002, is frequently held up as an example of congressional control that largely succeeded in doing so and its expiration is considered a watershed...

It is generally recognized that, in the absence of policy changes, the U.S. faces a long-term fiscal challenge. But, as a result of the 2007-09 recession, the U.S. is currently facing an unemployment crisis — the unemployment has been above or near 8 percent since February 2009. Furthermore,...

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...

Independent fiscal councils are claimed to mitigate political failures in fiscal policymaking and increase fiscal performance. However, to influence and persuade policymakers these watchdog councils need to have access at different stages of the budget process. This paper examines the extent to...

At the end of the first seven months of 2022, growth in revenues of the consolidated budgets of the RF regions was outpacing the growth in budget expenditures and the inflation rate, indicating that regions maintained a sufficient level of financial sustainability. As for the structure of...