THE IMPACT OF STOCK-FLOW ADJUSTMENTS ON CHANGES IN CROATIAN GENERAL GOVERNMENT DEBT LEVEL

Abstract

Surveillance of government deficit and debt data is a very important issue from the point of view of national policy makers, as well as international financial and statistical organizations. Deficit and debt developments in EU member states has been regularly (twice a year) monitored by Eurostat, which collects and publishes so called excessive deficit procedure (EDP) statistics on government deficit and debt. The European Commission uses the EDP statistics to assess whether EU Member States' government deficits and debt levels comply with the relevant EU legislation (according to the Maastricht Treaty criteria, government deficit should be less or equal to 3% and government debt less or equal to 60%) of GDP. Deficit and debt data are published mostly in relative terms, i.e. compared with the nominal GDP and compiled according to the ESA2010 methodology. In simplified theory, annual government deficit/surplus should be equal to change in the level of government debt at the end of the actual year and at the end of the previous year. In reality, this is not true due to the impact of the stock-flow adjustments (SFA), which explains the difference between the change in government debt and the government deficit/surplus for a given year. Main aim of this paper is to identify the main factors contributing the changes in government debt other than deficit/surplus (SFA) in Croatia during the period 2010-2017. Those factors are divided into three main categories: net acquisition of financial assets (further broken down by financial instruments), adjustments (for coverage, valuation and exchange rate changes) and statistical discrepancies (reflects differences arising from the use of various data sources). Second, not less important aim of paper is to identify size and impact of the particular SFA factors on changes in debt level during the observed period in Croatia, and based on results obtained, short recommendations for Croatian policymakers will be outlined.