Summary Measures of Fiscal Influence (Mesures sommaires de l'incidence budgétaire) (Medidas generales de la influencia fiscal)

This paper sets up guidelines for the use of alternative summary measures in the appraisal of fiscal policy under differing conditions with respect to both the economy and the objectives of policy. The frequently employed budget balance rule for evaluating fiscal policy is rejected as being of limited usefulness, since it does not distinguish the effects of the budget on the economy from those of the economy on the budget. Three national measures that undertake the required adjustment in budget balances (but from a full-employment point of view and employing a Keynesian definition of the budget balance) are examined. The measures each focus on a different aspect of budgetary impact. Together they provide a comprehensive evaluation indicating (a) the extent to which the budget diverges from its full-employment profile (U. S. full-employment balance); (b) whether or not the budget is countercyclical (German cyclical effect of the budget); and (c) the changing stance of the budget, whether expansionary or otherwise (Dutch budget impulse). While each of the measures retains a comparative advantage with regard to its central focus, it is found that, under certain transformations, the measures are approximately interchangeable and that, in fact, any one of the measures may be used for a comprehensive evaluation. The remainder of the paper relaxes certain of the underlying assumptions in the three national measures. These appear best suited to environments where the "crowding out" response of private sector expenditure to direct government borrowing is low, and where readily employable resources exist. Alternative liquidity balance measures are proposed for monetarist environments. A simple liquidity balance measure is also outlined for evaluating the inflationary repercussions of a budget in supply-constrained situations. Possible uses of alternative measures, including conditional assessments of fiscal adequacy, are illustrated through case studies of an industrial and a developing economy, respectively. /// La présente étude établit des directives pour l'utilisation de différentes mesures sommaires visant à évaluer la politique budgétaire en fonction de conditions et d'objectifs économiques différents. Le critère de solde budgétaire fréquemment employé pour évaluer la politique budgétaire est écarté en raison de son utilité limitée, car il ne permet pas de dissocier les effets du budget sur l'économie de ceux de l'économie sur le budget. L'auteur examine les m