Q-ESFIPDBA quarterly dataset of Spanish public nance variables t for economic analysis

Abstract

The analysis of scal policy and its macroeconomic impact is currently at the forefront of economic analysis. In most European countries, nevertheless, the in-depth study of these issues has been limited by the absence of quarterly scal data. In the case of Spain, even though the Central Government sector is well covered in National Accounts terms, statistics pertaining to the aggregate of interest, the General Government sector, are more limited. Indeed the available series are limited to the period starting in 2000Q1, are only provided in nominal, non-seasonally adjusted terms, and left aside a number of relevant scal aggregates. Against this framework, the aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive database of quarterly scal variables suitable for macroeconomic analysis built up following state-of-the-art modeling techniques, and using as input all available sources of scal data: (i) the database covers the period 1986Q1-2010Q4; (ii) it presents both non-seasonally adjusted and seasonally adjusted series; (iii) it covers a broad number of scal aggregates. By focusing solely on intra-annual scal information for interpolation purposes we are able to capture genuine intra-annual "scal" dynamics in the data. In particular we take into account the well-known fact that tax collection can decouple from the evolution of theoretical macroeconomic tax bases. Using our database we provide a number of applications that highlight its usefulness for policy analysis and applied research: (i) we run SVAR models and provide estimates of the impact of changes in scal aggregates on macroeconomic variables; (ii) we also compare the obtained SVAR results with those obtained with alternative datasets and previous studies; (iii) we provide some stylized facts on the cyclical properties of scal policies on the basis of public nance variables.