Measuring fiscal guidance transparency

Abstract

The public disclosure of medium-term fiscal plans – “fiscal guidance” – represents an increasingly important, yet understudied element of fiscal transparency frameworks. This article introduces a dataset that contains a large set of forecasts on fiscal and economic items issued by all European Union governments over the period 2001-2018. These forecasts are used to build an index of fiscal guidance transparency and to explore its main characteristics and correlates. The analysis reveals that governments are more transparent in their guidance on fiscal flows and macroeconomic aggregates than on liabilities, assets, and exogenous assumptions. In addition, transparency declines in the forecast horizon and in the strength of the governing coalition. Collectively, the results suggest that fiscal guidance transparency may be a sensitive area of policymaking that deserves scholarly attention. Possible uses of the measure of fiscal guidance transparency in research are discussed.