Global/Multiregional, growth rates, inflation, CASE Reports, CASE Network Studies and Analyses, taxes, Trade, economic integration and globalization, transition economies

Evaluating Government Policy in Transition Countries

Abstract

The paper examines neoclassical measures to evaluate government policy in transition countries: 1) marginal factor prices and the return to capital, 2) growth rates and taxes, 3) inflation rates, and 4) debt/GDP ratios, related to international real business cycle and endogenous growth theory. It further postulates a way to consider the debt/equity position of the government, related to a risk-yield framework. This gives a potentially more useful indicator than the debt/GDP ratio alone. Empirically these measures are examined in an illustrative way for a set of Central European countries plus Germany and the US for comparison, for the period of 1990-1998, using an internally standardized data set from the on-line International Financial Statistics.