scholarly journals The Proper Measurement of Government Budget Deficits: Comprehensive Wealth Accounting or Permanent Income Accounting for the Public Sector

10.3386/w1013 ◽  
1982 ◽  
Author(s):  
Willem Buiter
2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 22
Author(s):  
Frank J. Bonello

No economic topic has attracted more attention during the 1980s than the size of Federal government budget deficits and the corresponding rapid rise in the public debt. Crowding out news regarding Third World debt problems, U.S. foreign trade deficits, and the break up of American Telephone and Telegraph, Federal government budget deficits have been blamed for everything from high interest rates to the deterioration in the moral fiber of the American people. Deficits and debt have also caused political reversal: historically free spending Democrats blaming Reagan deficits for a variety of economic ills while the conservative Republican president treats the deficit with benign neglect.The purpose of this paper is not to answer all of the questions that have been raised regarding the causes and consequences of government deficits and debt. The initial concern is instead with the facts and figures on the absolute and relative size of the Federal governments recent deficits and debt. Next certain measurement issues are addressed for there is a continuing debate regarding appropriate procedures for expressing the governments budgetary outcomes. The third and final section of the paper reviews some of the arguments, theoretical and empirical, on the relation between deficits and debt on the one hand and interest rates on the other. In each section the intent is to survey rather than to present new theoretical arguments or new empirical evidence.


2011 ◽  
Vol 9 (11) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
Joseph N. Heiney

<span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 26pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0pt; text-align: justify;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">As the economy continues to recover from the recent recession of 2008-2009, there has been much discussion of the related issues of increases in federal, state, and local budget deficits and debt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A major element of that discussion concerns public employee salaries and benefits, including under-funded pension benefits.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This paper involves the development of a theoretical model for the determination of wages and salaries in the public sector which has implications for these current issues.</span></span></p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span></p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small;"> </span>


Author(s):  
Mieczyslaw Dobija

<p>The aim of this paper is pointing out the causes of persistent budget deficits, and the emergence of deflation. As a result of the theoretical analysis of capital and labor tandem the phenomenon of labor self-financing is revealed. Discerning the money-goods economy in the form of the two parallel streams of products, and money lead to the alternative equation of exchange, which indicates an acceptable credit size? The main outcome of this study is clarify that deflation is related to funding of work in the public sector by taxes. It results in imbalance between the value of the product and the money streams. If inflation is under control then deflation reveals itself. Additionally it is concluded that economics without deficit, inflation and deflation may exist. It is further claimed that in the present economics there is a correspondence between the amount of necessary issuance of money and the amount of salaries in the public sector.</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-364
Author(s):  
Chinedu Anthony Umeh ◽  
Chinedu Daniel Ochuba ◽  
Ugochukwu Remigius Ihezie

The study examined the impact of government budget deficits on the public health sector output in Nigeria over a period of 1980 to 2018. The specifically study sought to: investigate the impact of government budget deficits affect the public health sector output in Nigeria, ascertain the impact of external borrowing on the public health sector output in Nigeria and evaluate the impact of domestic borrowing budget deficits financing on the public health sector output in Nigeria. The methods of data analysis range from argument dickey fuller unit root test, Johansen co-integration test and finally error correction method. The following results were the basic findings of the study: (1) government budget deficits have positive insignificant impact on public health sector output in Nigeria (t – statistics (0.5663) < t0.05 (1.684); (2) external borrowing of financing budget deficits has negative insignificant impact on Health sector output in Nigeria (t – statistics (-1.2746) < t0.05 (1.684) and (3) domestic borrowing of financing budget deficits has positive significant impact on Health sector output in Nigeria (t – statistics (2.1711) > t0.05 (1.684). This study concludes that the budget deficits of government have positive insignificant impact on Health sector output in Nigeria because more budget allocations are put in health recurrent government expenditure than health capital expenditure whereas health capital expenditure is the engine of growth in health sector output. The study recommended that the Federal Government should commence and continue to execute the National Health Act. Allocation’s map-out for the Basic Health Care Provision Fund (BHCPF) should be drawn directly from the National Health Act, which is not less than 1% of the Consolidated Revenue (CRF) Fund of the Federation and is to flow from the FG's share of revenue.


Author(s):  
Ērika Žubule ◽  
Lūcija Kavale

The paper is focused on the efficiency of government activities and possibilities of evaluating it. Nowadays an appropriate use of public finances is an urgent problem of financial management of the state. Therefore, a special emphasis is put on the necessity to evaluate the results of activities of the public sector. These results have become an important element of the public financial system oriented towards results, as they form a stable base for planning and evaluating government budget resources. Being unaware of results, it is impossible to estimate if the aims and tasks set by the government financial policy are real and appropriate to the current situation and financial resources. Therefore a systematic approach to the evaluation of activities of the state administration is necessary. It can be done with the help of the system of efficiency indicators.Existing views on efficiency evaluation options for the public sector in economic literature are summarized, related issues are highlighted and trends in the improvement of the performance indicators system are identified in the research.


Author(s):  
James Garand ◽  
Justin Ulrich ◽  
Ping Xu

This chapter reviews the recent scholarly literature on fiscal policy in the American states, focusing on several important topics: (1) size and growth of the public sector in the states; (2) how states determine expenditure and revenue priorities; (3) the politics of state budget deficits and surpluses; (4) the effects of fiscal policy on various political, economic, and social outcomes. The pace of scholarly research by political scientists on state fiscal policy has slowed considerably during the first decade of the 2000s, resulting in a leveling off of scientific progress in understanding state fiscal policy. There is a lot we still do not know about the size of the public sector, state spending and revenue policy, state deficits and surpluses, and the effects of state fiscal policy. We conclude with a discussion of unanswered research questions as a means of building an agenda for future research on state fiscal policy.


Author(s):  
John Nkeobuna Nnah Ugoani

Poor public management defined by corruption and lack of prudence in public life continues to hold Nigeria hostage and makes good governance difficult. Since the 1980s government has been using many methods including the processes of privatization and commercialization as means of re-engineering the public sector for total quality management, and to increase the share of the public sector’s contribution to the gross domestic product. The experiment never achieved the desired level of success partly due to lack of political will on the part of government to wedge a total war against corruption, and also partly because the public sector is a large scale administration that has many entry and revolving doors which government finds difficult to close. These limitations provide the incentives for widespread public corruption that is recognized as one of the greatest challenges of government in carrying out its mandate. 110 respondents participated in this study conducted through the exploratory research design. The participants provided useful data that were triangulated with data from secondary sources for the purpose of the study. To achieve the objective of the investigation, data were analyzed through statistical techniques and the result showed significant positive correlation between good governance and good management. It was recommended that appointments in the public sector should feature a combination of people from private and public sectors of the economy to enhance competence with the aim of reducing public sector corruption. Further study should examine the reasons behind rising budget deficits as a way of reducing cost of governance in Nigeria.


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