Merler, S. (2015) “Greece: update on public finances – the State primary budget balance has returned almost in line with the target, but mostly due to expenditure cuts. Revenues continue to underperform“, Bruegel Institute, 16 March.
At the end of last week the Greek Finance Ministry published the preliminary budget execution bulletin for February. The State primary budget balance has returned almost in line with the target, but mostly due to expenditure cuts. Revenues continue to underperform.
These bulletins give data at monthly frequency and on cash basis, which makes it well suited to assess the situation of public finances from a short term financing perspective. Moreover, it shows the cumulative execution of the budget and it allows comparing actual outcomes with expected ones.
As previously shown, the budget execution for December 2014 and January 2015 was significantly below expectations. For the 12-months period of January-December 2014 the outcome for the primary balance had been 1.9bn against 4.9bn expected, mainly due to the underperformance of State budget net revenues, which undershot the target by about 3.9 bn. Underperformance continued in January 2015, when the primary balance was 443 millions against 1.4bn expected, with revenues still 935 millions short of the target.
Relevant posts:
- Exadaktylos, T. (2015) “Assessing Syriza’s first month in office: why Greece remains a long way from a break with austerity“, LSE EUROPP, 03 March.
- Rodríguez-Pose, Α., Psycharis, Υ. & Tselios, V. (2015) “Politics and investment: Examining the territorial allocation of public investment in Greece“, VoxEU Organisation, 03 March.
- Monokroussos, P. (2014) “Fiscal multiplier, automatic stabilizers and public debt: A simulation exercise for Greece“, Greece Macro Monitor, Eurobank Global Markets Research, 12 May.