IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/mnb/bullet/v4y2009i1p35-47.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Apples and oranges? A comparison of the public expenditure of the Visegrád countries

Author

Listed:
  • Gábor P. Kiss

    (Magyar Nemzeti Bank (central bank of Hungary))

  • Róbert Szemere

    (Magyar Nemzeti Bank (central bank of Hungary))

Abstract

In this article, the average expenditure of Hungary is compared to that of the other three Visegrád countries. In Hungary, this expenditure is higher by 10 % of GDP, but one-quarter of this is attributable to higher interest expenses, and one-third to revenue factors which simultaneously increase both revenues and expenses. These revenue factors have a neutral impact in terms of the deficit, but they distort the comparison in respect of the levels of expenditure. For example, the tax content of public expenditures, the sales and fee revenues collected directly to cover the expenditures, and the size of EU subsidies – flowing through the budget – vary considerably from one country to the next. Two-thirds of the remaining 4-percentage point difference appears in relation to households’ cash transfers (pensions, family allowances). Hungary spends more on public services and economic subsidies, but less on the current and capital expenditure of healthcare institutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Gábor P. Kiss & Róbert Szemere, 2009. "Apples and oranges? A comparison of the public expenditure of the Visegrád countries," MNB Bulletin (discontinued), Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), vol. 4(1), pages 35-47, May.
  • Handle: RePEc:mnb:bullet:v:4:y:2009:i:1:p:35-47
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.mnb.hu/letoltes/kiss-szemere-en.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kiss, Gábor P. & Szemere, Róbert, 2012. "Comparison of the Redistribution Level and Structure of Functional Expenditure in the Visegrád Countries," Public Finance Quarterly, Corvinus University of Budapest, vol. 57(1), pages 116-139.
    2. Gábor P. Kiss, 2014. "New Numerical Fiscal Rules for the Pension Balance," MNB Bulletin (discontinued), Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary), vol. 9(2), pages 56-65, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    government expenditure; public spending; Visegrad countries.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mnb:bullet:v:4:y:2009:i:1:p:35-47. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Maja Bajcsy (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/mnbgvhu.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.