Expenditure on social protection-new EU member states and the Czech republic

It is well known that in EMU the degree of similarity in the composition of current expenditures is relevant since the way Member States are affected by external shocks depends at least in part on this composition. In the 8 postsocialist countries recently admitted to the EU (EU-8) the mean value of both current revenue and expenditure correspond to this of EU-12 for the period 1993-2007 (first of all Slovakia and Hungary). Lower are the values in the Baltic States. The dynamics of expenditure on social protection exhibits a clear picture-the main tendency in EU-8 is to decrease the ratio of this kind of expenditure on GDP. Taking into account the functional classification of government expenditure (COFOG) we see that social protection is the largest category of government expenditure for all EU Member States. Only in Poland and Slovenia these outlays correspond to the EU-15 average (in the Baltic states the social protection is very low). The coefficients of variation for the functional catagories of government expenditure display a wider volatility in EU-8 than in the older countries of EU. Panel analysis-(fixed effect models) are in accordence with simple correlations and show that only the unemployment rate has had the expected positive relationship with social transfers for the majority of EU-8 countries. The more profound analysis of the Czech Republic displays the increasing redistribution of GDP since the year 2002.

Keywords: Social protection, functional classification, new EU Member States