Bosnia and Herzegovina : Calculation of Cyclically Adjusted Budget Balance and Assessment of Fiscal Policy Stance

Hlivnjak, Sandra ; Laco, Matija

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: FISCAL POLICY;    BUSINESS CYCLES;    FISCAL TRENDS;    EXPENDITURE ELASTICITY;    STABILIZATION;   

RP-ID  :  128335

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

What is the real character of fiscalpolicy? Is it expansionary or restrictive? Is itpro-cyclical or does it have stabilization effects?Policymakers and economic analysts need to be able toascertain fiscal policy effort. As the actual budgetbalances are affected both by cyclical factors andstructural measures, they may not, in general, be veryuseful when seeking to assess the stance of the fiscalpolicy. To understand the true nature of fiscal policy, itis therefore fundamental to remove cyclical effects ofgeneral government budget balances. The cyclically-adjustedbudget balance (CAB) indicator plays this role in the fiscalsurveillance framework as a means of analyzing the fiscalsituation and changes in policy that result from theintentional actions of the government. This paper, for thefirst time, provides detailed calculations of thecyclically-adjusted budget balances in BiH, following acommonly agreed method by the European Commission andassesses the character of the fiscal policy in BiH from 2008to 2019. The analysis showed that in earlier years BiH hadled stabilizing expansionary fiscal policy, while in morerecent years the fiscal policy was mostly restrictive and procyclical