The track record of fiscal forecasting in the EU

Antonio Afonso and Jorge Silva ()
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Jorge Silva: ISEG-ULisboa; UAO-Portuguese Parliament ;

Economics Bulletin, 2015, vol. 35, issue 2, 1318-1329

Abstract: We study the deviations between the budget balance ratio forecasts and outcomes in the European Commission semi-annual vintage forecasts for the period 1998-2011. Our main conclusions are: i) there is evidence that the deviations of real GDP and inflation can explain the deviations of the budget balance ratio; ii) total investment growth deviations are also important; iii) unemployment rate deviations are not statistically relevant; iv) the fiscal rule index is not a statistically significant determinant of the budget forecast deviations; iv) higher than forecasted ratios of expenditure, revenue and debt for the EU are relevant; v) and expenditure-to-GDP deviations were larger than the revenue-to-GDP ones for the EU.

Keywords: macro forecasts; fiscal forecasts; EU (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E6 H6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-06-01
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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