Fiscal Rules and Fiscal Illusions – The Experience of Poland

Przemysław Panfil

Fiscal Rules and Fiscal Illusions – The Experience of Poland

Publication date: 12.2021

Financial Law Review, 2021, Issue 24 (4)/ 2021, pp. 24 - 42

https://doi.org/10.4467/22996834FLR.21.030.15397

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Fiscal Rules and Fiscal Illusions – The Experience of Poland

Abstract

The aim of this article is to provide the synthetic presentation of over twenty years of Poland’s experience in establishing and obeying the system of fiscal rules. This experience depicts the scale of problems entailed by public authorities’ low determination as regards observance of constraints imposed on them. Therefore, it is necessary to substantially reinforce the budgetary frameworks in Poland with the use of the best European models. Firstly, the ESA 2010 standards should be fully implemented into the Polish legal order. Secondly, the Polish system of fiscal rules should be complemented with the budget balance rule, which would make it easier to achieve and maintain a medium-term budgetary objective defined by the EU regulations. Thirdly, a fiscal institution should be established, which would allow for constant and independent of the government monitoring of the observance of fiscal rules. Such institutional changes would make it possible to constrain the discretionary nature of the fiscal policy and, consequently, would increase Poland’s fiscal sustainability in the medium and long term. The basic research methods used in this paper are dogmatic analysis and comparative legal analysis.

Keywords

deficit bias, public debt, fiscal sustainability, fiscal rules, fiscal illusions

References

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Legal Acts

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European Commission, Fiscal Sustainability Report 2012, European Economy, no. 8, 2012

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IMF, Assessing sustainability, Washington, 2002

IMF, Fiscal Rules – Anchoring Expectations for Sustainable Public Finances, Washington, 2009

OECD, Government at a Glance 2013, Paris, 2013

Information

Information: Financial Law Review, 2021, Issue 24 (4)/ 2021, pp. 24 - 42

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4467/22996834FLR.21.030.15397

Article type: Original article

Authors

Przemysław Panfil

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3717-4664

Department of Financial Law, Faculty of Law and Administration, University of Gdańsk

Published at: 12.2021

Article status: Open

Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Percentage share of authors:

Przemysław Panfil (Author) - 100%

Classification number:

JEL Classification System:

National Budget, Deficit, and Debt: General (H60)

Article corrections:

Publication languages:

English

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Number of downloads: 466

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