Is It Possible to Adjust ‘With a Human Face’? Differences in Fiscal Consolidation Strategies between Hungary and Iceland

Bruno Martorano ()

Comparative Economic Studies, 2015, vol. 57, issue 4, 623-654

Abstract: Although Hungary and Iceland suffered a similar fall in GDP, their respective governments decided to follow different strategies of adjustment. Each country cut spending according to different priorities. Moreover, the Hungarian government implemented a flat tax reform, while the Icelandic government replaced the previous flat tax system with a progressive structure. As a result, Iceland met the objectives of the IMF program, while worsening economic conditions forced Hungary to ask for additional external help. In terms of income distribution, social transfers contributed to reducing inequality in Iceland but not in Hungary, while the different tax strategies operated in contrary ways.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ces/journal/v57/n4/pdf/ces201522a.pdf Link to full text PDF (application/pdf)
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ces/journal/v57/n4/full/ces201522a.html Link to full text HTML (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to 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:pal:compes:v:57:y:2015:i:4:p:623-654

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/41294/PS2

Access Statistics for this article

Comparative Economic Studies is currently edited by Nauro Campos

More articles in Comparative Economic Studies from Palgrave Macmillan, Association for Comparative Economic Studies Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().