Long-Term Fiscal Risks and Sustainability in an Oil-Rich Country : The Case of Russia

Bogetic, Zeljko ; Smits, Karlis ; Budina, Nina ; van Wijnbergen, Sweder

关键词: ACCOUNTING;    ALLOCATION;    ARREARS;    ASSET POSITION;    BANK BORROWING;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5240
RP-ID  :  WPS5240

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Russia entered the global crisis withstrong fiscal position, low public debt, and large fiscaland monetary reserves, which helped it cushion the crisisshocks. But the rise in the non-oil fiscal deficit in2007-08 and, more importantly, the massive impact of theglobal crisis in late 2008 and 2009 have dramaticallyaltered Russia's medium-term and long-term economic andfiscal outlook. While Russia is emerging from this crisis ona much stronger footing than during the 1998-09 crisisthanks to its strong-pre crisis fundamentals, large fiscalreserves and solid management of the crisis, it willnevertheless need to implement sustained fiscal adjustmentin the coming years. Both revenue and expenditure measureswill be needed. This will require 2-3 percentage points ofGDP in fiscal adjustment for about five years in addition tokeeping total expenditure levels at a relatively low 31.5percent of GDP, consistent with long-term social expenditureneeds and requirements of long-term fiscal sustainability.Following a period of adjustment, if Russia would restrainits long-term non-oil deficits to the permanent income (PI)equivalent of its oil revenues as proposed in this paper,its fiscal policy will return to long-term sustainable path.The long-term, sustainable level of non-oil fiscal deficitis estimated at about 4.3 percent of GDP. With the 2009actual non-oil fiscal deficit of about 14 percent of GDP,this implies significant and sustained fiscal adjustmentover the medium term. The expenditure needs of the socialsecurity system as well as a reduction in key non-oil taxesrepresent a major fiscal risk to all scenarios.