Accrual budgeting and fiscal policy

Accrual Budgeting and Fiscal Policy

* Marc Robinson is a European-based international consultant and trainer. This article was written when he was a senior economist in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the International Monetary Fund. The author gratefully acknowledges the valuable comments of Marco Cangiano, Ian Lienert, Gösta Ljungman, David Fjord Nielsen, Eivind Tandberg and participants in a seminar in the Fiscal Affairs Depa...

Formula Budgeting: The Economics and Analytics of Fiscal Policy under Rules

The dramatic change in aggregate fiscal policy in recent years has contributed to a shift from process rules to allocation rules in federal budgeting. Although the allocation rules inherent in formula budgeting seem to offer fairness in times of fiscal constraint, they actually impose arbitrary program-level budgets that reflect the peculiarities of baselines, accounting conventions, and time h...

Commentary: Fiscal Policy and the Fiscal Position

As economics has developed, a number of different fiscal principles have been suggested. Perhaps the oldest principle was that the Government should balance its books. This principle was adopted by the 1979 Conservative Government but they delivered a budget in balance or in surplus only in 1988/89 and 1989/90. The same principle has been adopted in the Stability and Growth Pact, albeit with an...

Fiscal Federalism: Program Budgeting and the Multilevel Governmental Setting

Fiscal Policy and Unemployment

This paper explores the interaction between fiscal policy and unemployment. It develops a novel dynamic model in which unemployment can arise but can be mitigated by tax cuts and public spending increases. Such policies are fiscally costly, but can be financed by issuing government debt. In the context of this model, the paper analyzes the simultaneous determination of fiscal policy and unemplo...