Oh, why did Fred Uleman ask such a simple question that has kept me from other things all afternoon?

It turns out that I never actually compared directly Ministry of Finance budget statistics and national accounts data on government expenditures. 

So, I looked at MOF's so-called Settlement budget data of the central government, which presumably includes what is actually spent or collected. On the expenditures side, the Budget data runs about 10% higher on the average than the national accounts. This is a surprise because I had come to believe that the budget left out a lot of stuff. The difference between the two, however, varies from 5% to 15%. I have not figured out so far what accounts for the missing spending.

The correlation of the two series is pretty high, 99%. However, the correlation of the annual differences is considerably lower, more like 0.70%, mainly because of the variation of the mysterious items that I cannot figure out. Also, the annual differences are considerably smoother from year to year in the national accounts, possibly because it picks up the actual date of spending, which can slide over fiscal years.

More when I finish grading my classes.

Arthur Alexander


On Dec 26, 2013, at 2:42 AM, Fred Uleman wrote:

I am wondering how strong the correlation is between initial budget tax revenues and actual tax revenues for the year. Ditto the correlation between initial budget outlays and final total outlays (including all of the supplemental budget expenditures) for the year.  In other words, I wonder how significant this budget really is except in so far as it hints at where the administration's priorities are/aren't.

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Fred Uleman, translator


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