The Expenditure Benchmark: Complex and Unsuitable for Independent Fiscal Institutions

Carlos Fonseca Marinheiro ()
Additional contact information
Carlos Fonseca Marinheiro: Portuguese Public Finance Council (Conselho das Finanças Públicas)

Comparative Economic Studies, 2021, vol. 63, issue 3, No 5, 431 pages

Abstract: Abstract The expenditure benchmark is an indicator for the evolution of public expenditure introduced in 2011 in the already complex European fiscal rules framework, being a very specific application of an expenditure rule. However, it is a quite complex indicator and not suitable for the use at national level by the Independent Fiscal Institutions—that monitor compliance with national fiscal rules—as it relies on the European Commission’s data inputs and judgement not available in real time. This paper argues for more transparency and for a simplification of this indicator to reduce the reliance on non-observable variables. Such improvements are essential as most existing proposals to reform the European Union’s fiscal rules aim to use an expenditure rule as the operational fiscal rule, a role the expenditure benchmark as is cannot fulfil.

Keywords: Expenditure benchmark; Independent Fiscal Institutions; EU fiscal rules; Stability and Growth Pact; E61; E02; E62; H50; H61 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41294-021-00151-6 Abstract (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:63:y:2021:i:3:d:10.1057_s41294-021-00151-6

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

DOI: 10.1057/s41294-021-00151-6

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 ().