Fiscal governance is defined as a combination of institutions, rules and norms that structure good governance in the area of fiscal policy. It can be named as the specific mechanism of coordination by using of tools such as: budgetary procedures (legislative fiscal rules), fiscal rules (numerical) and independent fiscal institutions/ fiscal councils. Fiscal governance focuses on how the fiscal policy is planned, approved, conducted and monitored, including the involvement of not only public bodies, but the business sector and civil society too. In this study, particular attention was paid to capturing the essence of the relationship between the qualitative elements of fiscal councils activity and its impact on stabilizing the public finances in the view of fiscal governance concept. During the last world crisis in the EU countries, an interest in establishing fiscal councils has increased. Before 2008 there were only seven institutions in the EU, while in 2014 there are already 19. The question is - are these institutions efficient in stabilizing public finances? Therefore, the main objective of the article is the assessment of the role of the fiscal councils in the coordination of the fiscal policy in the EU Member States. The conducted analysis verifies this role on the basis of theoretical deliberation of the current state of the art. The empirical research verifies fiscal councils’ dependence on fiscal balance of EU countries. Research was conducted on the basis of the European Commission, Eurostat and International Monetary Fund data sets.
10 years after the biggest enlargement of the European Union, the community is not free from problems. The decline in the share of industry in GDP of the Union and the plans to stop this decrease by the newly created reindustrialization policy belong to the most serious ones. Another important problem is the declining competitiveness of the European economy and insufficient technical and scientific progress. Also fiscal issues adversely affect the functioning of the EU economy and, in particular, the individual Member States.
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(Post)crisis economy becomes less orthodox and hermetic. It starts opening itself to external intellectual trends and views its own judgments with less confidence, additionally subjecting them to a growing number of reservations. This paper offers a selection of crisis related reflections.
The paper presents a fiscal policy model integrating tax avoidance, the complexity of tax systems and the fiscal solvency hypothesis within the traditional framework of tax competition. Furthermore, we take into account: taxation of consumption, possibility of capital income shifting and foreign goods purchases (untaxed in the destination country). We conclude that if fiscal policy is by no means unfettered the equilibrium can be allocation efficient, provided that the marginal rate of substitution between private and public goods is one. The changes in public debt affect tax rates in equilibrium differently: positively for the consumption tax rate and negatively for the labor tax rate. The change of the capital tax depends on the level of economic internalization. This approach is especially useful during a solvency crisis and can be applied to predict tax rates’ adjustment when the bonds issuance decreases or public debt accelerates.
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This paper shows that a modified real business cycle (RBC) model, one that includes home production and fiscal spending shocks, can solve one of the RBC puzzles and generates zero correlation between wages and hours. In addition, the micro-founded model presented here provides a sound theoretical model to analyze fiscal policy in a neoclassical framework and is able to capture many aspects of the data that the benchmark RBC model was missing
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The aim of the present work is to present selected views of specialists in financial law and economics on the desired taxation system, especially corporate income tax. The author tries to do this in a clear way for lawyers and economists as well as laypersons. Firstly, the article discusses some demands for the taxation system made by economists and presents short-term effects of taxation policy based on the IS-LM model. Next, it presents selected opinions of the financial law doctrine on income tax, especially corporate income tax. The article also contains a description of selected institutions of American tax law and some proposals to make use of American experiences in Poland. The article is an attempt to take a wide approach to the issue of income tax, especially corporate income tax, including economic opinions as well as fiscal and legal views. Such a broad approach to the issue is a result of a conviction that issues connected with taxation lie on the meeting ground for interests of two sciences which seem to be very distant from each other: law and economics
The recent economic crisis, one of the symptoms of which is a sudden increase of public debt in the majority of OECD countries, again made the government and the society aware of the necessity for conducting transparent, but also responsible fiscal policy. Creating a framework of the fiscal discipline responsible fiscal policy started to be perceived as an essential condition of effective governance leading to reduce budget deficit and public debt. The independent fiscal institutions may be included into regulations supporting public finance management. Their fundamental aim is to reduce the related risk of conducting the irresponsible fiscal policy, monitoring it, controlling deficit and assessing long-term effects of govern-ment action in this area. The purpose of this article is to present independent fiscal institutions and evaluate their usefulness in enhancing the effectiveness of the fiscal policy and stabilizing public finance. Experiences of the EU and OECD countries were used in the analysis.
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The aim of this article is to introduce the concept of offshore financial centres (so - called „tax havens”). The first section briefly reviews definitions and characteristics of a tax haven. Next, the categorisation of offshore financial centres is presented. The last section examines financial and economic competitiveness of offshore financial centres. In the context of the EU’s fiscal harmonisation special attention is given to overseas territories of EU member states that can be classified as offshore financial centres.
The results from a simulation analysis of the policy-mix have been presented, carried out in a fiscal-monetary game, in which fiscal and monetary authorities make decisions from the point of view of realizing their own respective economic objectives. In order to represent the interrelations between, on the one hand, the instruments of fiscal policy and of monetary policy, and, on the other hand – the economic effects resulting from their application, a modified logistic function was used. The method adopted enables consideration of the specificity of the effects of these instruments on the business cycle, consisting in the limited effectiveness of applying any extremely restrictive or expansive policy, and the respective impact on the economy. The simulation study was meant to show the influence exerted both by the parameters of the function and the priorities of the fiscal and monetary authorities on the Nash equilibrium state, corresponding to the choice of a particular combination of budgetary and monetary policies.
The subject of this article is the presentation of tax expenditures as a type of public spending recognized as the off budget expenditures, as well as indicating their influence on Polish budget. This aim was proved in the way of comparative studies of theoretical concepts of tax expenditures and solutions applied in the countries reporting them. Tax expenditures strictly related to particular economic and social policy goals, are special tax provisions which partly or absolutely reduce tax burden of some groups of taxpayers, and in the result – diminish the tax revenue appropriately. The focus on these privileges arisen on the base of tax code is highly important in the current budgetary conditions while the huge part of countries is struggling with imbalances of public finance, and increasing public debts. The overall value of estimated tax expenditures in Poland amounted to 81.6 billion PLN in 2012. Comparing this value to the general government deficit in 2012 of 62.7 billion PLN, the scope of public spending realized out of budget procedure is clearly evident. In 2009-2012 the share of tax expenditures in total public spending amounted on average by 18.3%, and the adequate loss of government revenues was estimated at 26.1% of total tax revenue. Unfortunately this not always transparent part of public spending is out of public control and effectively limits the ability of proper and responsible fiscal policy.
The purpose of this article is to identify changes in the development of national fiscal rules in response to the crisis, in terms of the new economic governance in the EU. In-depth analysis was carried out on the example of the three countries that have the highest Fiscal Rule Strength Index, i.e. Spain, Slovakia and Sweden. The conclusions of the study were the basis for the formulation of recommendations for Poland. The research focuses on the new rules as well as the rules modified between 2007 and 2012. The key elements of creating fiscal rules and criteria used for their evaluation were recognized. The research shows that the strength of fiscal rules is determined by their legitimacy, the type of institutions monitoring them, the adjustment mechanism and sanctions, as well as the scope of the public sector, which the rule was imposed on. Short duration of most of the rules limits the ability to evaluate their effectiveness. However, the analysis of changes in the finance sector and local government in terms of new institutional arrangements allowed to conclude that the strong fiscal rules index is not a guarantee of maintaining public finance discipline, and the example of this was the varied fiscal position of the countries surveyed.
Fiscal policy, including its expenditure aspect, is often discussed and analysed from a variety of angles in the literature on public finances, undoubtedly due to the major importance of this topic. However, not all areas of the expenditure part of fiscal policy have been subjected to in-depth analysis. One of the less discussed tools of fiscal policy consists of general purpose transfers, which are a certain type of expenditure passed from the central budget to local governments. This study focuses on presenting the systems for subsidising sub-national governments in selected European countries and evaluating, based on a synthetic measure, the fiscal policies of France, Italy, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Poland and Finland implemented by means of general transfers, with the aim of identifying the best fiscal policy with respect to subsidising and the characteristic features determining its success. The method of unitisation of statistical feature values was employed in this study to enable comparative analysis. As suggested by the results of the analysis, spanning the years 2003–2012, the highest-ranked fiscal policy implemented via general-purpose transfers has been developed in the Netherlands.
In this paper a thesis was put forward, that the prevalence of fiscal unsustainability in modern economies can be described as the government failure. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to present the lack of fi scal sustainability in the light of the concept of government failure, and fi scal sustainability as a requirement to improve the quality of public governance. In the fi rst part of the article the traditional approach to market failure and the resulting need for public regulation was presented, pointing out its defi ciencies. Part two is dedicated to description of the essence of fi scal unsustainability as a symptom of government failure in the allocation, redistribution and economy stability. The fi nal section focuses on the issues of ensuring fi scal sustainability as a requirement to improve the quality of public governance, contributing to the reduction of state failure.
Skala zjawisk kryzysowych w gospodarce światowej towarzysząca załamaniu gospodarczemu z roku 2008 wpłynęła na rewizję neoliberalnego paradygmatu o tym, że nierówności stanowią pozytywną motywację do aktywności ekonomicznej, innowacyjności i kreatywności, sprzyjając wzrostowi gospodarczemu. W podobny sposób ewoluują w ostatnim czasie także poglądy na temat możliwości wykorzystania polityki fiskalnej do realizacji funkcji wyrównawczych. W kontekście opisanej ewolucji poglądów szczególnego znaczenia nabiera zatem poszukiwanie optymalnych metod prowadzenia polityki interwencyjnej pozwalających realizować zakładane cele gospodarcze i społeczne, a pozbawionych jednocześnie krytykowanych przez przedstawicieli myśli liberalnej mankamentów antywzrostowych. Celem artykułu jest analiza i ocena zakresu oraz skuteczności wykorzystania niektórych instrumentów polityki fiskalnej do łagodzenia nierówności dochodo-wych w warunkach ostatniego światowego kryzysu ekonomicznego. W badaniach wykorzystane zostały doświadczenia wybranych 20 krajów Unii Europejskiej (UE), będących także członkami Organizacji Współpracy Gospodarczej i Rozwoju (OECD), obejmujące lata 2007–2012.
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As far as social inequality is concerned, the unprecedented scale of crisis phenomena in the global economy during the recent years (including in particular the economic crisis of 2008) and the progressing globalization processes, contributed to the restatement of the neoliberal paradigm claiming that inequalities are the positive drive for economic activeness, innovation and creativity which are beneficial for the economic growth. The ideas on the potential application of fiscal policy for compensatory purposes have also been recently changed. Thus, considering the afore-mentioned evolution of ideas, the search for the optimum state intervention methods allowing for the achievement of the assumed economic and social goals, and at the same time free of the anti-growth drawbacks so much criticized by the representatives of liberal ideas, have become a vital issue. The main purpose of the article is to analyze and to evaluate the range and effectiveness of the selected fiscal instruments applied in order to reduce the scale of income inequalities during the last economic downturn. The paper is based on the experiences of twenty selected EU member states (which are also OECD member countries)covering the years 2007–2012.
The paper examines the efficiency of numerical fiscal rules in Poland. The main interest of the author is whether numerical fiscal rules can improve the effectiveness of fiscal policy. Politicians tend to satisfy their own interests and use fiscal policy to achieve that goal. As a consequence, they usually run an excessive budget deficit and public debt. Often, fiscal policy becomes procyclical and strengthen negative results of business cycle instead of reducing them. In order to reduce those negative effects, numerical fiscal rules are implemented. Usually they impose limits on budget deficits, public debt or government spending. The analysis comprises presentation of the rules used in the EU and in Poland (domestic rules). The author also presents advantages and disadvantages of particular rules and tries to identify the characteristics of the efficient fiscal rule. Finally, the author examines and evaluates the efficiency of fiscal rules in Poland in the context of their impact on opportunities for consolidation of public finances.
Zasady i narzędzia transparentnej polityki fiskalnej zostały przygotowane przez MFW po to, by zapewnić poszczególnym państwom makroekonomiczną stabilizację, długookresowy wzrost gospodarczy oraz ogólną fiskalną poprawność. Wynikało to z potrzeby przeciwdziałania nieko-rzystnym tendencjom w polityce budżetowej gospodarek końca lat 90. Jej realizacja jest uwarun-kowana wieloma ograniczeniami ekonomicznymi, prawnymi i społecznymi. Wzrost transparentno-ści polityki fiskalnej powinien zapewnić większą odpowiedzialność za decyzje polityczne, przede wszystkim poprzez większy dostęp społeczeństwa do informacji o tych działaniach. Obecna sytuacja kryzysowa w krajach Unii Europejskiej uwidoczniła jednak, że niezależnie od przyjętych ograniczeń, wpływ na kształt polityki fiskalnej mają poszczególne rządy oraz ich postępowanie w zakresie wydat-ków i zadłużenia. Brak determinacji rządzących do ograniczenia permanentnej skłonności do deficy-tów będzie prowadziło do dalszego zadłużania, niezależnie od narzuconych ograniczeń w ramach polityki fiskalnej.
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Principles and tools of the transparent fiscal policy were presented by the IMF as a precondi-tion for macroeconomic stabilization, the long-term economic growth and the general fiscal recti-tude. IMF had observed the need of the counteraction for tendencies in the end of 90s budgetary policy. Implementation of fiscal transparency should lead governments to higher motivated politi-cal decisions, controlled by the society greater access to information about government action. Current budgetary crisis in the European Union countries showed that fiscal policy is realized by each government, irrespective of the adopted restrictions on the state or another level. That is why, without limiting the permanent tendency to deficits, the debts will be still growing, irrespective of imposed restrictions in the framework of the fiscal policy.
This paper examines the impact of nominal and real rigidities in the economy on the effects of fiscal policy. The study confirmed the hypothesis that both nominal and real rigidities enhance the impact of fiscal policy on the Polish economy. In the case of nominal price rigidity it was found that the impact of government spending on GDP depends on the conduct of monetary policy. On the other hand, under conditions of wage rigidity, the strength of fiscal multipliers depends on the slope of the labour supply curve. The study also examined two types of real rigidities - lack of access to the credit market, and consumer habits. Analyses show that the above rigidities result primarily in a strong positive relationship between government spending and the level of consumption
PL
W pracy zbadano wpływ występowania sztywności nominalnych i realnych w gospodarce na charakter oddziaływania polityki fiskalnej. Potwierdzono hipotezę, że zarówno sztywności nominalne, jak i realne zwiększają siłę wpływu polityki fiskalnej na gospodarkę polską. W przypadku sztywności nominalnej cen uzyskano, że siła oddziaływania wydatków rządowych na PKB uzależniona jest od prowadzonej polityki pieniężnej. Natomiast w warunkach sztywności płac wysokość mnożników fiskalnych zależy od nachylenia krzywej podaży pracy. W pracy zbadano również dwa rodzaje sztywności realnych - brak dostępu do rynku kredytowego i występowanie przyzwyczajeń konsumpcyjnych. Z przeprowadzonych analiz wynika, że ww. sztywności skutkują przede wszystkim silną dodatnią zależnością pomiędzy wydatkami rządowymi a poziomem konsumpcji.
W artykule omówiono stan polskich finansów publicznych na przełomie lat 2013 i 2014, realizację ustawy budżetowej i jej nowelizację, dokonano także analizy polityki fiskalnej państwa. Wskazano pozytywne zmiany w tejże polityce i przytoczono przykłady popełnionych błędów. Zasugerowano konieczność podjęcia reformy systemu podatkowego. Odnotowano pozytywne funkcjonowanie dyscypliny budżetowej, wysoką dynamikę PKB i zadowalający poziom długu publicznego, wskazując kilka problemów z tym związanych. Zwrócono także uwagę na negatywne skutki reformy emerytalnej, szczególnie w zakresie tworzenia filara kapitałowego i podjęte kroki zaradcze.
EN
In his article, the author discussed the state of Polish public finances on the turn of the years 2013 and 2014, implementation of the budget act and amendment thereof; he also carried out an analysis of the state’s fiscal policy. He pointed out to positive changes in the policy and provided examples of the errors made. The author suggested the necessity to undertake a reform of the tax system, noted the positive functioning of budget discipline, the high GDP dynamics and the satisfactory level of public debt, indicating several problems related thereto. He also paid attention to the negative effects of the old-age pension reform, particularly as regards setting up the capital pillar, and the undertaken remedies.
Ostatni kryzys finansowy doprowadził do znaczących akcji stymulacji fiskalnej w przypadku większości krajów wysoko rozwiniętych, co przełożyło się na istotny wzrost ich zadłużenia. Relatywnie wysoki poziom długu publicznego występuje w krajach strefy euro oraz szerzej w krajach Unii Europejskiej. Konieczność redukcji zadłużenia prawdopodobnie zmusi w przyszłości wiele krajów Unii do przyjęcia znacznie bardziej restrykcyjnej polityki fiskalnej w średnim i długim okresie. W tym kontekście przeprowadzone badanie ma na celu stwierdzenie czy w ostatnich dekadach występowały epizody niekeynesowskich dotowań fiskalnych w krajach strefy euro. Jeżeli odpowiedź na tak postawione pytanie jest pozytywna, należy stwierdzić, czy niekeynesowskie skutki polityki fiskalnej stanowiły znaczący czynnik rozwojowy. Kolejny problem badawczy postawiony w niniejszej pracy koncentruje się na sposobie przeprowadzenia konsolidacji fiskalnych oraz wpływie strategii konsolidacyjnych na krótkookresowe tempo wzrostu gospodarczego. W analizie zastosowano dynamiczny model panelowy do badania warunkowej β-konwergencji. Jako uzupełniającą metodę badawczą wykorzystano analizę jakościową znaczących konsolidacji fiskalnych, ze szczególną koncentracją na różnicach w sposobie przeprowadzenia zacieśnień przynoszących niekeynesowskie i keynesowskie skutki. Przeprowadzone badanie dostarcza argumenty na rzecz tezy o istnieniu kanałów transmisji fiskalnej, które mogą prowadzić do niekeynesowskich skutków polityki fiskalnej. W tym samym czasie mogą one stanowić istotny czynnik warunkowej β-konwergencji.
EN
Last global financial crisis has led to massive fiscal stimulation actions in most of developed countries which resulted in significant increase of their public debt. This can be also said about Eurozone or wider EU economies. This factors in near future will force many EU countries to adopt much stricter middle and long term fiscal policy that will be necessary for deleveraging process. In this context the aim of the research is to check whether can one find non-Keynesian effects of fiscal consolidations in Eurozone countries in last decade. If the answer is positive, then could these non-Keynesian effects be significant developing factor in case of Eurozone countries. The third scientific question concentrates on the ways the fiscal consolidations were implemented and the potential influence of consolidations strategies on short term growth. In the research the econometric dynamic panel model based on the concept of conditional β-convergence was applied. As a complementary method qualitative analysis of cases of significant contractions was made with the concentration on the differences between expansionary thus non-Keynesian cases and conventional Keynesian cases of fiscal contractions. The research results give some arguments for existence of fiscal transitions channels leading to non-Keynesian effects of fiscal policy, which in the same time can be a factor of β-conditional convergence.
Celem artykułu jest ocena roli paktu stabilności i wzrostu w stabilizowaniu gospodarki w strefie euro przez zbadanie współzależności między przestrzeganiem jego reguł przez państwa członkowskie a antycyklicznym nastawieniem ich polityki fiskalnej w latach 1999–2015. W badaniach zastosowano statystykę opisową oraz analizę korelacji. Z przeprowadzonych badań wynikają następujące wnioski: stopień poszanowania reguł paktu stabilności i wzrostu przez państwa członkowskie jest niski, zwłaszcza w odniesieniu do wymogu dotyczącego osiągnięcia i utrzymania średniookresowego celu budżetowego; polityka fiskalna miała raczej charakter procykliczny aniżeli antycykliczny; istnieje dodatnia korelacja między przestrzeganiem numerycznych reguł paktu stabilności i wzrostu a antycyklicznym nastawieniem polityki fiskalnej.
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The article assesses the role the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) plays in stabilising the euro area economy. It examines the relationship between member states’ compliance with the rules of the Pact and their attitude to countercyclical fiscal policy in the years 1999–2015. The study used descriptive statistics and correlation analysis, and arrives at the following conclusions: the level of member state compliance with the rules of the SGP is low, particularly in relation to the requirement to achieve and maintain the medium-term budgetary objective; the fiscal stance was pro-cyclical more often than countercyclical; there is a positive correlation between the perception of the Pact’s numerical rules and the attitude of countercyclical fiscal policy.
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