Working paper no. 3/2001

01-03-2001

Fiscal sustainability in the OECD. A simple method and some preliminary results

This paper contains an assessment of the sustainability of fiscal policy in 19 OECD countries. Based on a simple measure of fiscal sustainability, the results indicate that fiscal sustainability requires an average budget improvement of about 2,3 per cent of GDP. However, fiscal policy is sustainable in the US, the UK, Italy and Canada, while several EMU countries will sooner or later face very substantial tax increases or expenditure cuts.

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