Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-15T18:48:29.559Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The UK Public Finances: Past Experience and Future Prospects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2020

Nigel Pain  and
Garry Young
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the more troubling aspects of economic performance in the UK since the recession has been the persistence of high levels of public sector borrowing. Borrowing reached a peak of 7.1 per cent of GDP in 1993–94 and has since fallen to 4.5 per cent in 1995–96, with a further fall to 3½ per cent in prospect for this year. Continued borrowing at high levels has raised public sector indebtedness. On the Maastricht treaty definition, general government debt has risen from 41.9 per cent of GDP in 1992 to an estimated 54.2 per cent of GDP in 1995 so that much of the leeway below the 60 per cent reference level has been used up. The overall net worth of the public sector has declined from 28 per cent of GDP to 14 per cent over the same period.

Type
Articles
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 158 , October 1996 , pp. 27 - 35
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 National Institute of Economic and Social Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

∗

Thanks are due to Ray Barrell, John Fitzgerald, Bill Martin and Martin Weale for helpful discussions and comments on this article. Correspondence should be addressed to the authors at the National Institute.

References

Buiter, W.H. (1985), ‘A guide to public sector debt and deficits’, Economic Policy, no. 1.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Flemming, J. (1988), ‘Debt and taxes in war and peace: the closed economy case’, in Arrow, K.J. and Boskin, M.J. (eds), The Economics of Public Debt, St Martin's Press, 201–23.Google Scholar
Flemming, J. and Oppenheimer, P. (1996), ‘Are Government spending and taxes too high (or too low)?’, National Institute Economic Review, July, no. 157.Google Scholar
Pain, N., Young, G. and Westaway, P. (1993), ‘The state of the public finances’, National Institute Economic Review, August, no. 145.Google Scholar
Ritchie, A. and Lawton, D. (1994), ‘The Public Sector Borrowing Requirement—definition and measurement’, Government Economic Service Working Paper no. 119.Google Scholar
Spackman, M. (1991), ‘Discount rates and rates of return in the public sector—definitions and measurement’, Government Economic Service Working Paper no. 113.Google Scholar