Poor Quality of Fiscal Forecasts as a Trigger for Fiscal Imbalance in the European Union Countries – The Scale and Methods of Limiting It

Abstract

The economic crisis revealed the imperfections of the solutions aimed at maintaining fiscal discipline among Member States. Therefore, measures are taken at the EU level to strengthen the institutional aspects of a budgetary process that is based on reliable forecasts. What has proven to be of special importance in this context is the creation of fiscal instruments to minimise the occurrence of such phenomena in future, which has been reflected in the European regulations applied. The article seeks to evaluate the extent to which the use of instruments such as fiscal rules, medium-term budgetary frameworks and the emergence of independent fiscal institutions has had an impact on the quality of forecasts and, consequently, on the scale of fiscal imbalance.

Keywords

• fiscalpolicy
• fiscal rule index
• public debt
• budget deficit
• fiscal imbalance