Accrual accounting and Australian fiscal policy

Marc Robinson

Fiscal Studies, 2002, vol. 23, issue 2, 287-300

Abstract: Australian governments have recently moved from cash accounting to accrual accounting. Accrual accounting has been accompanied at the national government level by the introduction of a new key fiscal policy measure: the ‘fiscal balance’. This paper explains and evaluates this new fiscal measure. It concludes that, given the present fiscal policy of the Australian government, fiscal balance is a superior fiscal policy measure to the ‘cash’ budget balance measure which it replaced. However, from the alternative ‘golden rule’ policy standpoint, fiscal balance is not a meaningful fiscal policy measure — although its stock counterpart, net financial liabilities, certainly is.

JEL-codes: E62 H61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2002
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