Structural deficits in Czech public finances

The paper analyzes the fiscal position of Czech public budgets. It focuses on the structural and the cyclical parts of the budget deficits and concludes that public budgets were in structural deficit as early as 1994. The authors propose three methods toward estimating the potential output of the Czech economy and demonstrate how these estimates lead to different conclusions vis-a-vis. fiscal policy. Their analysis shows that the Czech economy under-performs with respect to its perceived convergence with the European Union. The authors also adjust the official budget numbers for one-off privatization revenues. These revenues considered, public budgets appear significantly less balanced, and recent practice suggests a mounting budgetary dependence on privatization revenues.