The paper consists in the proceedings from the Public Finance Workshop 2012 organised by the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs on fiscal relations across government levels in times of crisis. This volume collects the proceedings of the one-day Public Finance Workshop organized by DG ECFIN on 27 November 2012 in Brussels. It gathers together views of academics, national policy-makers and international institutions on the topical issue of the functioning of fiscal relations across government levels. In particular, the objective was to define how to render compatible the ongoing process of fiscal decentralization in a large number of Member States with the required fiscal retrenchment so as to comply with the new EU fiscal governance rules aiming at achieving sound and sustainable public finances.."--Document home page.
The cyclically-adjusted budget balance (CAB) is the backbone of the EU framework of fiscal surveillance, both in its preventive and corrective arms. The concept corresponds to the budget balance prevailing if the economy was running at potential. After correcting for the one-off and temporary measures, it is called structural budget balance and used to assess the fiscal policy stance. The importance of the CAB has been restated forcefully with the recent reform of the European economic governance. This paper aims at methodologically improving the CAB to better measure the reaction of the balance-to-GDP ratio to cyclical conditions. This was achieved by using a more precise concept of the cyclical-adjustment parameter and by updating the decade-old fiscal elasticities underlying the computation of the CAB. This paper reviews and explains in detail these recent improvements and describes the impact thereof on the CAB results."--Document home page.
The paper examines potential challenges arising at Member State level from the need and scope for either consolidating on the revenue side or shifting taxes away from labour. It uses a systematic indicator-based screening to identify Member States that may face a challenge in each of these two policy areas. The first quantitative screening is applied to identify Member States that have a need and room for shifting taxation away from labour to other tax bases. The analysis of labour taxation looks at overall labour taxation and at taxation of two specific groups considered to be rather responsive to labour supply incentives, namely low-skilled workers and second-earners. A second screening aims at identifying at Member States that might consider using taxation - in addition to expenditure control - to consolidate their public finances and steer them onto a sustainable path. This screening looks into the potential need for substantial fiscal consolidation and the availability of 'tax space'. Robustness checks are carried out to test how far the screening results depend on the screening approach. These checks overall confirm the outcome of the main screening approach. However, both screenings need to be complemented with in-depth country analysis before being able to draw firm policy conclusions."--Document home page.
Work-related tax incentives can have a significant effect on how much, if at all, certain individuals decide to work. This paper examines the fiscal impacts and associated welfare costs of reforms to such tax relief measures in five European countries, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Hungary and Slovakia. It finds that at least a quarter of the extra tax revenue raised by lowering work-related tax incentives tends to get lost, as individuals react by working less or withdrawing altogether. The revenue gain is particularly limited following the removal of tax incentives targeting the very lowest earners, which may even lead to revenue losses in some cases. Reducing work-related tax reliefs also has significant negative welfare effects."--Document home page.
The paper consists in the proceedings of the workshop organised by the Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs held in Brussels on 18 October 2012. Against the background of severe consolidation needs in many EU Member States, the workshop addressed the macroeconomic impact and redistributive effects of consolidation measures on the revenue side, two topics ranking high on the current taxation policy agenda. The proceedings gather together the views of academics, national policy-makers and international institutions expressed during the conference. The presentations and discussions in the first session touched upon the balance between current consolidation measures and their medium-term effects. It also provided insights from macroeconomic modelling to design tax consolidation policy and looked into ways to measure consolidation efforts on the tax side. The second session discussed the best tax bases to be used to safeguard social equity and considered income and capital tax options to make the richest contribute to meeting fiscal adjustment needs. Country-specific presentations showed how tax measures were used for consolidation purposes and looked into various experiences in distributing income through the tax system."--Document home page.
This paper provides evidence on the size, composition and cyclicality of discretionary tax measures (DTM), using a new database developed by the Output Gap Working Group. While their average magnitude is fairly limited over a long period with discretionary tax cuts being offset by discretionary tax hikes, they can be non-negligible at any given point in time. The cyclical pattern of DTM appears irregular and depends on the policy regime. While small pro-cyclical discretionary tax cuts were seen during the pre-crisis period, larger counter-cyclical tax breaks were adopted at the start of the crisis period, followed by pro-cyclical tax hikes in a context of substantial public finance consolidation. The paper also examines the impact of DTM on tax elasticities in the EU for broad tax categories over the period 2001-12: DTM do not seem to explain the bulk of the large short-term fluctuation in gross elasticities of tax receipts to GDP. The availability of DTM also allows for an analytical illustrative exercise, computing variants of the cyclically adjusted balance (CAB) based on time-varying elasticities (net of discretionary measures) instead of on constant elasticities. However, the indicators turn out to be extremely erratic and plagued by statistical 'noise', which makes them difficult to interpret in practice. The fact that elasticities change sign frequently and that their strong movements offset each other over a number of years also suggests that the short-term variations may largely be driven by time lags between revenue collection and revenue bases. Therefore, the CAB variants cannot be seen as an adequate solution for addressing the issues faced by the CAB."--Document home page.
This paper presents a selective survey of the recent literature on labour market institutions and performance and offers new empirical EU-based evidence on the impact of labour market reforms on employment and labour market adjustment. While the literature traditionally treats labour market institutions as exogenous, attention shifted recently towards understanding the underlying causes of specific institutional arrangements. As a consequence, the literature highlights the great importance of an efficient policy design exploiting these interactions wisely and identifies general principles for achieving an efficient policy design at both macro and micro levels. While empirical evidence does no show a major change in terms of intensity of labour market reform after the setting of the Economic and Monetary Union and the creation of the euro, the reforms aiming at strengthening the labour market attachment of vulnerable groups tend to have been successful both in raising their employment and increasing labour market adjustment."--Publication information page.
The recent crisis has shown how economic shocks can lead to considerable and persistent cyclical divergences in the euro area. Successful monetary unions have generally been backed by fiscal arrangements providing income insurance against shocks. This paper reviews the potential issues, the underlying trade-offs and the necessary theoretical conditions to make an income insurance scheme workable, and provides an empirical application for the euro area. It also discusses 'good' design features, arguing that such schemes should focus on large shocks and exert a moderating effect during boom times, as well as provide cushioning against adverse shocks."--Document home page.
An essential part of the Europe 2020 strategy consists of reforms with a medium- to long-term horizon that focus on promoting the sustainability of public finances and enhancing potential growth. Building on structural reform simulations with the DSGE model QUEST III, this paper presents several stylised scenarios combining fiscal consolidation efforts with differentiated progress in implementing structural reforms to explore the possible extent of gains from such reforms. The results confirm that if the EU succeeds in generating necessary reform momentum, GDP could increase by up to 7% by 2020. The extent of the benefits will crucially depend on the depth and breadth of undertaken reforms."--Publication information page.
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