Statistical – Econometric Analysis of the Correlations between the Social Security Budget and the Main Macroeconomic Aggregates in Romania

This paper analyses the correlation between social security budget and the main macroeconomic indicators (like GDP, monthly average gross earnings, unemployment) in Romania during the period 2000 – 2009. Romania faces a more severe economic recession than originally anticipated. Although the implementation of anti-crisis program was able to lead to normalization of financial conditions, the contraction of economic activity is higher than initial projections. Because of the great policy debate in Romania about the impact of the reduction of pensions and salaries and increases of taxations on the reduction of budget deficit, we have explained in our paper the basic sides of the balanced budget debate. There are three basic sides to the balanced budget debate. The traditionalists argue for a reduction of the budget deficit since it harms the economy. Another group holds the Ricardian view of government debt in believing that there is no real harm done to the economy by the national debt. A third group claims one way or another that the budget deficit is not an adequate measure of fiscal policy. We will argue which of these views is most reasonable, based on a study case. The study is based on official data published by the National Institute of Statistics, with the specification that they are transformed into real values in order to assure the data comparability. The methodology used is the correlation analysis, the factorial analysis and the regression analysis, in order to evaluate the impact of some macroeconomic policies on the budget deficit. Three hypotheses on macroeconomic policies are discussed in the paper and their influences on the budget deficit. The main problem in Romania was that the macroeconomic policies didn't give enough attention to budget deficit in order to keep it under control. This is the main cause of the actual unfavourable economical situation in Romania, with a huge budget deficit, with a decrease in economic activity, with increases of inflation and unemployment. Among the variables used in the study we mention: total incomes, total expenditure, budgetary deficit, unemployment rate, monthly average net earnings, average number of pensioners and social allowance recipients, monthly average pension of pensioners and social allowance recipients, economically active population, monthly average inflation rate. By analysing the correlation between all the studied variables we observe that there is a strong correlation between monthly average pension and monthly average net earnings. Increases in the level of earnings will determine the increase of budget deficit. At first view the macroeconomic policy adopted by the actual government in Romania (the cut with 25 % of salaries in the budgetary system, VAT increase) will have as a result the decrease of budget deficit. Since the monthly average net earnings is correlated with unemployment and inflation rate, the reduction of the general level of earnings will determine the increase of unemployment and inflation. Therefore this policy should be applied with caution, taking in parallel measures to compensate its adverse effects. The impact of some of the macroeconomic policies on budget deficit is studied using two regression functions. After an econometric analysis we shall conclude about the influence of the dependent variables of these functions on the Romanian budgetary deficit.