THE GOVERNMENT DEFICIT MANAGEMENT IN GREECE, BULGARIA AND ROMANIA

Abstract

This paper studies the factors which lead to budget imbalance and the impact of public deficit, public debt and gross fixed capital formation on economic growth for three Eastern Europe countries, using a data set from 1997 until 2020. A special focus is set on both the relationship between growth and the public deficit and on the fiscal behavior Greece, Bulgaria and Romania adopted to face the challenges brought about by the crisis started in 2009 and the pandemics from 2020. The outcome reveals a positive strong correlation between the deficit and economic growth only in the case of Bulgaria, while for the other two countries, whose deficit was much higher during the whole period of time, the impact is not that significant. Nevertheless, the government consolidated gross debt and the gross fixed capital formation proved to be relevant factors of influence for economic growth in all three cases.

Keywords

• government deficit
• national budget
• public expenditures
• public revenues
• public policies
• public debt
• financial crisis
• covid-19 pandemics