Economic Accounts for Economic Analysis, Policy-Making and Administrative and Legal Uses
15 Pages Posted: 14 Jun 2007
Date Written: May 2007
Abstract
The paper, which was prepared for the International Meeting of Economic Accounts organised by the Galician Statistical Institute (Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 10 and 11 May 2007), shows that economic accounts in the EU have a number of administrative and legal uses on top of the traditional uses of monitoring the behaviour of economies, macroeconomic analysis, policy making and international comparisons: The economic accounts are used notably to decide how much each EU Member States pays to the EU budget, which European regions are eligible for infrastructure financing by the EU budget, to assess the state of economic convergence in the EU and select Member States that participate in the euro area, to assess the respect of Stability and Growth commitments, etc. These administrative and legal uses have changed the nature of the economic accounts in the EU. The paper also reviews a number of difficulties with the data for the Stability and Growth Pact.
Keywords: economic accounts, Stability and Growth Pact, government deficit
JEL Classification: C80, H62
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation