There and Back Again – Six Fiscal Tales from the Past Decades

A phenomenon known in the international literature that is nevertheless unaddressed standard indicators used for analysing fiscal policy can yield misleading results. Creative accounting distort basic statistics, dividing data into groups of “revenue” and “expenditure” leads to same distorted results, common cyclically adjusted balance are also misleading. Based on impact these distortions, six episodes defined Hungary between 1995 2016. The first episode adjustment 1995–1996. structure spending changed then 1997 2001. In 2002–2006, consolidation was delayed after a sudden, major round expansion. After this, several approaches were tried ensure consolidation, two steps, 2007 2009 2010 2012. Finally, 2013 2016 once again.