Independent fiscal councils: Recent trends and performance

Roel Beetsma, Xavier Debrun, Xiangming Fang, Young Kim, Victor Lledó, Samba Mbaye and Xiaoxiao Zhang

European Journal of Political Economy, 2019, vol. 57, issue C, 53-69

Abstract: Countries increasingly rely on independent fiscal councils to constrain policymakers’ discretion and curb the bias towards excessive deficits and pro-cyclical policies. Since fiscal councils are often recent and heterogeneous across countries, assessing their impact is challenging. Using the latest (2016) vintage of the IMF Fiscal Council Dataset, we focus on two tasks expected to strengthen fiscal performance: the preparation or assessment of forecasts, and the monitoring of compliance with fiscal rules. Tentative econometric evidence suggests that the presence of a fiscal council is associated with more accurate and possibly less optimistic fiscal forecasts, as well as greater compliance with fiscal rules.

Keywords: Independent fiscal councils; Fiscal rule compliance; Fiscal forecasts (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E61 E62 H11 H62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (37)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Independent fiscal councils: recent trends and performance (2018)
Working Paper: Independent Fiscal Councils: Recent Trends and Performance (2018)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:poleco:v:57:y:2019:i:c:p:53-69

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2018.07.004

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