BUDGET POLICY IN AUSTRIA - INTERPRETATION OF STRUCTURAL BUDGET BALANCES OF THE CENTRAL AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT SECTOR

In analysing structural budget balances, the paper sketches the discre tionary budget policy in the Austrian central and general government s ector. At the beginning, the institutional factors are introduced whic h are supposed to account for differences between the budgetary situat ion of the central and general government, i.e. the constitutional dis tribution of legislative competency among the levels of the federative state and the conditions of influencing legislation by interest group s on the different federative levels. The methodological section prese nts the computation of a trend-adjusted structural budget balance-a me asure which is eventually used as a basis for calculating various budg etary indicators. The empirical section compares the selected budgetar y indicators between the central and general government. The discretio nary budget policies at these federative levels are interpreted with r espect to stabilising the business cycle and consolidating the budget. Moreover, the breakdown of the structural government expenses into th eir major components (interest payments, investment, consumption and t ransfers) are investigated. The concluding section states and discusse s the main results.