Assessment conducted with the PBO forecasting model and those of the members of the forecasting panel using exogenous variables and information on the structure of the budget package provided by the MEF
In the 2019 Draft Budgetary Plan published today, the Government, accounting for the Parliamentary Budget Office’s decision to not endorse the 2019 policy macroeconomic scenario, surprisingly affirms on page 6 that “the only subject of discussion should be the assessment of the impact of the budget measures on the macroeconomic scenario, and not the extent to which the official forecast diverges from those formulated by other analysts and published at different times and developed on the basis of partial or obsolete information”.
In this regard, the PBO emphasises that the endorsement exercise for the policy macroeconomic forecasts concerns the scenario in its entirety.
In any event, the assessment of the positive impact of the budget measures on real growth compared with the scenario on a current legislation basis was, for all of the PBO panel forecasters (CER, Prometeia and REF.ricerche), smaller than that implied in the Government forecast. An even larger divergence with respect to official projections was found by all of the PBO forecasters in the assessment of the impact of the budget package on nominal growth.
In addition, the decision was taken using the PBO forecasting model and those of the institutions who form part of the panel solely on the basis of the exogenous variables and the information on the structure of the budget package provided by the Ministry for the Economy and Finance after the publication of the Update of the Economic and Financial Document, information that cannot be considered either partial or obsolete.
