Rise of non-standard policy Instruments: Can budgeting catch up?

Delphine Moretti
Additional contact information
Delphine Moretti: OECD

OECD Journal on Budgeting, 2023, vol. 23, issue 3

Abstract: For implementing their economic and social policies, governments have traditionally relied on direct spending but increasingly use “non-standard” policy instruments, such as loans and guarantees. However, in many OECD countries, loans and guarantees are not yet submitted to the same scrutiny than direct spending as part of the budget process, and future costs associated with the use of these policy instruments are often not estimated, nor provisioned, making them appear initially costless. In turn, this generates risks of potentially biased budgetary decision making, deviations from medium-term spending plans and limited transparency. Considering experiences of OECD countries, this paper advises that budget offices take a leading role in proposing budgetary treatments for loans and guarantees that ensure an even-level playing field with traditional spending and put considerations of efficiency of spending above optimisation of short-term fiscal outcomes.

Keywords: budgeting; accounting; guarantees; loans (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H5 H6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1787/b58f0956-en (text/html)
Full text available to READ online. PDF download available to OECD iLibrary subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oec:govkaa:b58f0956

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in OECD Journal on Budgeting from OECD Publishing Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().