Fiscal targets. A guide to forecasters?
研究了德国、法国等六个欧盟国家的财政目标，发现即使政府达标率低，事前消费目标仍能预测事后财政走势，尤其在年初数据稀缺时对预测者很有用。
Summary We formulate and estimate empirical models for a selection of EU countries (Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland) to show that ex‐ante government (consumption) targets convey useful information about ex‐post fiscal developments, even if the track record of governments meeting their respective targets is low. The use of targets is particularly valuable when there is limited information about its implementation, for example, at the beginning of a fiscal year, when observed data are scarce. Thus, forecasters would be well advised to use fiscal targets as a guide in creating projections, despite the findings of a well‐established literature that reports that, ex post, governments tend to induce politically motivated biases in policy targets.