ABSTRACT

Fiscal forecasts produced by international institutions came under strong criticism after the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis due to excessive optimism. Presently, international organizations are also accused of applying a double standard. Their opponents claim they depict negative picture for populist governments. This paper evaluates forecasts provided by the IMF, European Commission and the OECD based on a panel of EU economies and selected large countries. Five years after the Sovereign debt crisis, we still find excessively optimistic forecasts for Portugal and Spain. Moreover, the EC and OECD are being indulgent to countries under the excessive deficit procedure. There is also a strong autocorrelation of forecast errors and cyclical biases – European Commission overestimates governments’ propensity to tighten fiscal policy during expansion and forecasts an overly pessimistic picture during a slowdown. However, we find no evidence suggesting that fiscal forecasts stigmatize the governments accused of populism.

摘要

在欧元区主权债务危机之后，由于过度乐观，国际机构的财务预测遭到了强烈批评。目前，国际组织也被指控采用双重标准。他们的反对者声称他们描绘了民粹主义政府的负面印象。本文评估了国际货币基金组织，欧盟委员会和经济合作与发展组织基于欧盟经济体和选定的大国组成的小组提供的预测。主权债务危机爆发五年后，我们仍然对葡萄牙和西班牙的预测过于乐观。此外，欧共体和经合组织正在向过度赤字程序下的国家放纵。预测误差和周期性偏差之间也存在很强的自相关性–欧盟委员会高估了政府在扩张过程中收紧财政政策的倾向，并预测经济放缓时的前景过于悲观。但是，我们找不到证据表明财政预测会给被指责为民粹主义的政府蒙上阴影。