Suchergebnisse

This article examines some of the policies and assumptions behind the government's fiscal policies and family support.The responsibility for dependent children has become lost in a 'no mans land' somewhere between the wages system, the government, and the family itself.Of particular concern is the erosion of the real value of income, allowance and other support (eg. child care, refuges etc.) for poor families. Alongside the government's oft quoted concern for the needy has been the actual fall in wellbeing of those most in need (eg. single parents, the unemployed, low income families) while other more traditional family notions have been supported (eg. dependent spouse rebate). In some instances this redistribution has occurred through active policies (eg. family allowances) while in other cases they have come about by 'non policies' (eg. failure to index allowances for single parents).

In the past twelve months the government budget situation in Germany has improved markedly, and the budget deficit has moved from 3.2 per cent of GDP in 2005 to 1.7 per cent in 2006, with further improvements in prospect. Over the same period in France, the budget deficit moved marginally from 3 per cent of GDP in 2005 to 2.5 per cent of GDP in 2006. The prospects for further improvement appear limited as the new government plans to cut taxes to stimulate the economy. Projections for budget deficits are very uncertain, as they are the difference between two large numbers (receipts and spending) that are difficult to predict accurately. Figures 1 and 2 plot the errors around our budget projections for France and Germany based on stochastic simulations on NiGEM. The 95 per cent confidence limit for our forecast one year ahead is around 1 per cent of GDP around our central forecast, and uncertainty increases into the future. As we can see from figures 3 and 4, our forecast errors for France and Germany have been well within the 95 per cent bands in the past three years, except for our one year ahead forecast for Germany for 2006. The budget improved by 1.5 per cent of GDP more than we had anticipated, and this appears to have been due to unexpectedly high tax receipts, rather than to changed policy.