Tag: federal budget

Categories
Economics

[2763] Is the new 3.2% deficit target achievable?

People are asking me if the Malaysian government’s new 3.2% deficit ratio target is achievable.  I have read in the news that several politicians are skeptical about the target. I do not remember who said that but I feel the sentiment is shared by many.

But the only way to really answer this objectively is to run a sensitivity analysis.

It is relatively easy to do a sensitivity analysis and I have done one last week under the assumption of no expenditure cut. That one shows how the deficit ratio would react if the government had not changed its budget under a range of NGDP and revenue assumptions. I think it somewhat presents the realistic worst-case scenario. The government said its fiscal deficit would have gone up to 3.9% of GDP in 2015 without any expenditure cut. I think that would come close to my expectation (4.0%-4.1%), which is based on no revenue growth (not unreasonable) and at about 4%-5% NGDP growth. I am not reproducing the table here because I do not want to confuse the readers. If you are interested in that sensitivity analysis, you should revisit the post.

But that sensitivity analysis does not indicate whether the new 3.2% target is realistic. To answer that, it requires a bit more moving parts added into it. One additional dimension is required to be exact.

I am doing that here by showing 3 cases of revenue change under a range of NGDP and expenditure assumptions (note the not-so-small difference from the above model). To cut through the graphics, I think the 3.2% fiscal deficit ratio target is achievable if revenue grows by about 2% (I said about because I am too lazy to run a differential equation).

Before that, some legends for the three charts at the bottom. The yellow-highlighted cells describe the would-be situations if the expenditure was not cut (yes, it is a funny coincidence that the government had planned to increase its expenditure by 3.2% from 2014 in the original budget). The red-highlighted cells show the deficit ratio under the January 20 revised budget expenditure figures (Under revised budget, expenditure would still grow 1.2%. So, please do not call this austerity).

Here is the deficit ratio if 2015 revenue does not change from last year. Achieving 3.2% target seems impossible under this scenario (I wrote impossible because it would require a very strong NGDP growth at a time the GDP deflator appearing weak. If government revenue is flat this year, then my projection for the deficit would be about 3.6%):

No revenue change

Things would look a bit better if the government revenue would grow by 1% this year, but it would miss the deficit target still as 9% NGDP growth is beyond our reach, given current constraints:

Revenue growth 1%

Under 2% revenue growth case, the 3.2% deficit ratio looks achievable:

Revenue increases 2%

So, after reading through this, do you think the 3.2% deficit is achievable?

Ultimately, your answer must rely on revenue and NGDP growth. I think the reasonable NGDP growth assumption is about 4%-5%. As for revenue, I am unsure at the moment. There are just too many moving parts that require further investigation but the original budget had it grown at 4.5%. It will definitely be lower than that this year.

Categories
Economics

[2761] What if there was no expenditure revision?

The Prime Minister announced the government’s plan to slacken its 2015 deficit target from 3.0% of GDP to 3.2%. While it is an easier target, it is still a cut from the expected 3.5% last year. I think we can relax it further but the revision is in line with my sentiment although not fully. There are several measures which I disagree, especially after the PM mentioned the phrase “import substitution” but I will not go into that.

The budget revision involves a number of expenditure cuts and other, I guess, less orthodox measures.

But what if there was no cut to expenditure?

I have made a simple calculation showing how the deficit ratio would react based on changes in the NGDP and government revenue. The original 2015 budget had the NGDP growing at 9% while revenue increasing at 4.5% from 2014, as I have highlighted in yellow below.

20150120Budgetrevision2015Malaysia

I suppose I could add a range of expenditure cuts too, but a 3-dimensional table or chart makes my head spins without the proper software at hand.

Also, I think it is good to use those figures and compare it with historical ones, just for the context:

20141013MalaysiaDeficitNGDP

Categories
Economics

[2605] How well does the government project its expenditure?

After reading a number of commentaries in the market, in the Malaysian econosphere and various research houses’ research papers, I became curious of the accuracy if government projection with respect to its finance. I was also curious at how serious I should take the government’s plan to cut its expenditure.

So, here is part of the answer.

Below is the percentage deviation of actual total expenditure from budgeted expenditure all the way back to 2000. I obtained the budget data from various Economic Reports published by the Ministry of Finance and the actual expenditure from BNM Monthly Statistiscal Bulletin.

On average, the government underestimates its own expenditure by 8.6%. From the graph, it is quite clear that there is a unrandom negative bias in the projection. Even if you remove 2008 (which is an outlier, and potentially 2009 too), the average does not change by much.

Categories
Economics

[2602] 2013 Malaysian federal governmet budget is smaller!

The tabling of the federal government budget is still ongoing but the Economic Report for 2013 by the Ministry of Finance is already out. Here is where the projected GDP figures and government finance are available for the first time.

I think the biggest point about this year’s budget is government spending. In most years, the fiscal deficit ratio (fiscal deficit to nominal GDP) dropped because the nominal GDP grew and not because actual deficit was down. This year, government spending is projected to come down.

Operationing expenditure is projected to fall by 0.3% and development expenditure is projected to fall by 4.2%. Overall expenditure is expected to decline by 1.1%.

The drop in operating expenditure is projected to come mostly from a drop in emolument (the civil service, really) and subsidies. For most people, this suggests that there will be a large subsidy cut in 2013. Pensions and gratuities are also projected to come down. This is a signal that something right is happening in the overly fat civil service. But then again, money to the civil service grew massively in 2012 that the cut in 2013 is pale.

Having a declining total government spending is rare. Between 1975 and 2012, there were only four times when total government spending decreased: 1983, 1985, 1987 and 2010.

Being a libertarian, I might be happy with this particular budget. But as I have been warned, I should wait until it happens.

This also means one thing. With the projected drop in government spending, politically, election must be held early in 2013 or even in 2012. It will be hard to achieve the reduction if election is held very late up to the constitutional limit. The later the election, the more electioneering will there be.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
errata — the peril of rushing. I made a number of mistakes in the earlier version of this entry, ranging from grammar to the numbers themselves. First, I had asserted that if the government stuck with the budget, it would have been the first time in ages that total government spending would decrese. While such year is rare, the last time that happened was in 2010. Second, I incorrectly calculated the overall expenditure growth rate.  I apologize for that and I have corrected those mistakes. 

Categories
Economics Politics & government

[2442] Hypocrisy hampers deficit reduction agenda

If one throws a dart randomly at those pieces of paper pinned on the wall, there is a good chance the dart will land on a handout provision. Those papers are the 2012 Budget.

The Budget, as tabled by the Najib administration, is an election budget. Civil servants, teachers, the police force, the armed forces, pensioners and others will get their share regardless of justifiability.

Meanwhile, the subsidy liberalization program that the Najib administration was so gung-ho about earlier has taken a back seat, half-baked and emitting a stench called hypocrisy. Idris Jala, a man who unproductively exaggerated that Malaysia would go bankrupt if the government expenditure continued to rise, now praises the Budget of goodies.

Such is the loyalty of some men to ideas and principles. The wind blows and the mind changes. There is no principle to stick to because only political convenience matters. Never mind the contradiction and hypocrisy. Voters have a short memory span. Give them money and they will go gaga. It is all about winning elections, not honesty and consistency.

The financial position of the federal government could be in a better shape if the administration had the necessary honesty and consistency instead of bending backwards to accommodate the populism monster.

Without the monster, the fiscal deficit for year 2012 — the Najib administration projects to be 4.7% of nominal gross domestic product (or RM33.8 billion in absolute terms) — could be lowered considerably. It could possibly go down as far as 3.7% of nominal GDP if all the subsidies, one-time cash transfers and other election-related handouts are flushed down the drain.

Admittedly, the drastic reduction will be a shock to the system that none might want to experience amid the present global economic uncertainty.

Yet, in times of uncertainty, it is only prudent to save for rainy days even within political needs. This is doubly true given that regardless what has been said and done about the importance of domestic demand, external demand is still wildly important to the domestic economy.

A number of analysts have already voiced out that the government’s revenue figures are too optimistic for a pessimistic world. That is all the more reason for observers to be conservative with the federal government’s finance.

The fiscal deficit can be brought down still lower even with political considerations in mind. Removing the RM3,000 one-off gift to 4,300 individuals, another RM500 one-off transfer to an expected 3.4 million persons and the KAR1SMA program that will cost RM1.2 billion off the Budget while keeping the bloated subsidy regime intact, the deficit for the year 2012 could stand at 4.4% out of nominal GDP instead of the higher projected 4.7%.

One could argue that these programs are welfare enhancing, hence they deserve to be written into the 2012 Budget. In order to forward that argument however, one has to believe in it first. Honesty is required.

Unfortunately, many of those within the government whom now say these are caring measures are exactly those whom accused these same measures of being irresponsibly populist. This suggests one thing. Their only moral compass involves one question: where did the idea come from?

If it is from across the aisle, it is destructively populist. If it comes from their side, the same measures are caring.

That is not a sincere moral system, for the currency is political convenience. The slogan is ”win the election and forget anything else.”

If honesty were of any value, these programs — regardless of whether they are labeled populist or caring — should have given way to a deficit reduction agenda. With honesty and consistency, the federal government would have a smaller deficit, so that there would be less taxation for all of us in the future.

Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved Mohd Hafiz Noor Shams. Some rights reserved
First published in The Malaysian Insider on October 10 2011.