As actual budget balances reflect both cyclical developments and discretionary measures, they are not very useful when seeking to assess the orientation of underlying fiscal policy and possible structural imbalances in the budget balance. The influence of fluctuations in economic growth on the government's budget balance can be examined by decomposing the actual budget into a cyclical and a structural or cyclically adjusted component. The former component shows the effect on the government budget of cyclical fluctuations in economic activity, the latter reflects what the budget balance would be if economic activity were at its trend level. This paper calculates the extent to which fiscal policy stabilises output fluctuations in South Africa and estimates the cyclically adjusted budget balance of the consolidated general government as an alternative fiscal indicator that can contribute to more effective fiscal policy and fiscal analysis.JEL E63

This paper investigates the nexus between government expenditure and government revenue in South Africa within the framework of a vector autoregressive (VAR) approach. It uses the Hylleberg et al. (1990) method to test for seasonal unit roots and finds that government revenue and government expenditure have unit roots at all frequencies. The Johansen procedure test results reveal that these variables are cointegrated. It is further established that revenue and expenditure are linked bidirectionally by Granger causality in the long-run, while there is no evidence of Granger causalityin the short-run in South Africa.

One tenet of taxation is its distorting effect on economic behaviour. Despite the economic inefficiencies resulting from taxation, it is widely believed that taxes impact minimally on the economy's growth rate. Evidence in developing countries generally supports this view. In this paper, we present evidence that tax distortions in South Africa may be much more severe. Using tax and economic data from 1960 to 2002 and a two-stage modelling technique to control for unobservable business cycle variables, we examine the relationship between total taxation, the mix of taxation and economic growth. We find that decreased tax burdens are strongly associated with increased economic growth potential; in addition, contrary to most theoretical research, decreased indirect taxation relative to direct taxation is strongly correlated with increased economic growth potential. J.E.L.

In addition to the conventional linear cointegration test, this paper tests the asymmetry relationship between fiscal revenue and expenditure, by making a distinction between the adjustment of positive (budget surplus) and negative (budget deficit) deviations from equilibrium. The analysis uses quarterly data for South Africa. The paper reveals that government authorities in South Africa are more likely to react more quickly when the budget is in deficit than when in surplus, and that the stabilisation measures used by government are fairly neutral at low deficit levels; that is, at deficit levels of 4 per cent of GDP and below. We conclude that the assumption that adjustment towards equilibrium is always present and of the same strength under all circumstances, is not valid in the case of fiscal data on South Africa; and that that fiscal sustainability in South Africa has been attained at the expense of a reduction in the ratio of expenditure to GDP on education, and a relatively constant ratio of expenditure to GDP on health. The paper noted that a priori one would expect that such a decline in the allocations to sectors which could stimulate growth and which in turn could generate future revenue, may pose a threat to the accumulated fiscal space. In South Africa the main fiscal challenge, therefore, is to find ways through which the recent gains in fiscal solvency can be consolidated.

This paper investigates the impact of fiscal policy on foreign direct investment (PDI) in South Africa during the past 30 years. Casual empirical analysis reveals a definite linkage between FDI flows and variables such as the deficit/GDP ratio, representing fiscal discipline, and the tax burden on foreign investors. This relationship is substantiated by econometric analysis. Given the economy's large degree of dependence on foreign capital, the government may contribute to an investor-friendly environment by adjusting fiscal policy. Some inroads have been made in this regard with the government's Medium-term Expenditure Framework (MTEF), which projects a policy of strict fiscal discipline in years to come. However, the tax burden is still relatively high and, due to its impact on foreign direct capital flows, requires urgent attention.