H62 - National Deficit; SurplusNávrat zpět

In the literature, it is still thought that to combat budget deficits, the state struggles to adjust the relationship between government revenues and spending. Accordingly, the causality relationship between government revenues and spending is generally explained through four main hypotheses: tax-spending, spending-tax, fiscal synchronization and institutional separation hypotheses. In addition to the doubt that the first and the only step in the fight against the budget deficit is government revenues and government expenditures, there are various uncertainties in the studies on this subject in the literature. There is no consensus on the subject due to the differences in methodological methods in previous studies, the inability to determine the macroeconomic size used to represent the revenue variable and differences in the revenue composition of countries. This situation causes the findings obtained from empirical studies in this field to vary and misleading policy recommendations to be made. For this reason, in this study, the causality relationship between government revenues, tax and spending data in the G7 countries for the period 1965-2021 is examined within the framework of two different models, using both time domain and frequency domain causality tests. We draw attention to the effect of differences in methodological methods on the results obtained. The complex results obtained, in addition to shedding empirical light on the complexity arising from the methodological methods available in the literature, also show that it is not healthy to explain studies on combating budget deficits only with the causality relationship between government revenues and spending or tax and spending.

Fiscal policy undoubtedly represents one of the main economic policies of the state influencing the economic cycle. The subject of the article is a discussion of fiscal impulse measurement, which is a necessary condition for long-term optimal counter-cyclical fiscal policy settings. The study distinguishes between the primary effect of the fiscal impulse and the overall impact on the rest of the economy. Thus, the fiscal multipliers are estimated on Czech data including a specific crisis and post-crisis period. The findings may contribute to optimal fiscal policy settings in various stages of the business cycle.

The Influence of Fiscal Deficit Creation on Economic Growth The discussion of influence of fiscal consolidation on economic growth is quite interesting and important topic. Consequently, the main aim of the article is to determine differences within the influence of fiscal deficit on the economic growth, which is caused by changes in certain groups of government expenditures and revenues. We focus on two different economic growth indicators. The first is growth rate of real GDP and the second is growth rate of potential output. The panel regression method is used which data covers 13 old EU member states in 1996 to 2013. We employ the omitted fiscal variable approach. There is a hint that every defi cit to revenue substitution has no significant growth effect. The results of expenditures imply, that government should reduce deficit created by debt service. The measure has relatively stronger effect on supply side. Potential output growth can also be supported by the deficit decrease of social expenditures. Lowering government consumption is detrimental to GDP, but it is not to potential output. There are some differences between results of two types of growth. Hence government should decide, if consolidation effect is considered against GDP or potential output at first.

Conditional Political Budget Cycle in the OECD Countries Examination of the so called political business cycle (i. e. macroeconomic cycle induced by the political cycle) provides little evidence in empirical studies. The empirical evidence of statistically signifi cant increase in the economic activity before election is especially a matter of less developer countries. There is a shift in focus to the examination of the political budget cycle in case of the developed economies. This paper examines the presence of conditional political budget cycle (PBC) in the OECD countries using data from all 34 member states over the period 1995- 2012. We suppose that the conditionality of the PBC depends on the credibility and transparency of the fi scal policy. The dynamic panel linear regression model is used in this article. Generalized method of moments (GMM) with instrumental variables (IV) is used for estimating arameters in this model. Three important results emerge: First, there is a PBC in the OECD countries. Second, the PBC in OECD countries strongly depends on credibility and transparency of fi scal policy. Third, the shape of the PBC in the OECD countries indicates that there is an immediate fi scal restriction after the elections.

Paper deals with the assessment of the fiscal position and stabilization of government policy. First, the framework for assessment of the fiscal position and the sustainability of public finances is presented. It is justified the usage of specific data based on the ESA95 methodology, including consideration of possible alternatives. Subsequently, the government deficit is set into the framework of macroeconomic identities and expressed its impact on the current account balance and other aggregates. Sustainability of the government deficit is firstly derived from the primary balance and consequently from the overall balance. Even before it is discussed appropriate fiscal policy in the short and long term, including the role of fiscal rules, OECD methodology is presented for the calculation of structural and cyclical balance, including risks associated with their quantification.

The interpretation of the relation between a budget deficit and a government debt in the standard economic theory is based on its unilateral causality, where the government debt comes into being due to the accumulation of budget deficits. The logic of the development of the government indebtedness is, in this approach, unambiguously determined by public finance processes monitored by Parliament in the framework of the course of fiscal years. The main objective of this paper is to stress that in reality the development of government indebtedness is significantly influenced by off-budgetary factors. The presented results endorse the hypothesis that the influence of stock-flow adjustment on the development of the debt/GDP ratio in a number of cases surpasses the influence of the budget balance. This trend significantly amplifies in the period of a financial crisis in context of the massive shift of the debt burden, occurring in the course of them.

We survey theories of impacts of budgetary rules in the budget process, review empirical evidence and on the basis of comparative studies attempt to design the optimal shape of the Czech budgetary rules. The theoretical part focuses on conventional and non-intuitive effects of spending caps and spending targets under alternative electoral systems. The empirical part conveys a meta-analysis of five studies on fiscal governance in Central and Eastern European countries. The final part recommends changes in the Czech budget process.

The study is focused on macroeconomic stability of the Czech economy. The first part (methodological) stems from the system of national accounting which offers two approaches: from the point of view of relationship between domestic supply and demand and between savings and investments. Analytical part examines domestic supply and demand, which is reflected in the balance of foreign trade. There was a positive tendency due to a favourable development in foreign trade. The relation between savings and investments, which is equal to current account balance, looks less favourable. The main source of imbalance is a negative balance of incomes expressing bigger outflow of primary incomes in relation to their inflow. Public finances can be identified as the weakest chain link of economic development. International comparison with new EU Members from middle Europe indicates that keeping macroeconomic stability in acceptable boundaries represents a serious problem.

The paper is concerned with pension reform in the Czech Republic and abroad. It argues against two opinions: on the one hand, that it is not necessary to do anything, and on the other hand, that a mandatory funded system should be implemented. Both approaches are false, because of creating overwhelming explicit debts. The author recommends an evolutionary approach founded upon decreasing of PAYG in combination with voluntary savings.