Diagnostics of the current state of Ukraine’s state budget
Authors:   State Institution “Institute for Economics and Forecasting, NAS of Ukraine”, Tverdokhlibova Dina 
Published: April 2023

The example of Ukraine shows that the indicator of fiscal sustainability s1a for one year can be used to diagnose the current state of the state budget. Six principles of construction of such an indicator are considered, which include: 1) construction of the indicator s1a for the current year; 2) calculation of the value of the indicator s1a for the current year every month, that is, with the frequency with which information on the implementation of the Ukraine's State Budget for the period from the beginning of the current year to the current month of the current year is published; 3) calculation of the indicator s1a based on the planned value of the state debt of Ukraine at the end of the current year, the actual value of the state debt of Ukraine at the end of the previous year, the planned and forecast values for the current year of the rest of its components; 4) the assumption that the planned values of the components of the indicator s1a are those whose values are approved in the regulatory and legal acts of Ukraine for the current year (namely: the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on approval of the forecast of economic and social development of Ukraine regarding the nominal GDP and the Law of Ukraine on the State Budget of Ukraine for the current year regarding the remaining components) or calculated based on the above mentioned approved values; 5) the assumption that the planned values of components of the indicator s1a for a month of the current year are equal to one twelfth of their planned values for the current year; 6) the assumption that the forecast values of the components of the indicator s1a for the current year are equal to the sum of their actual values for the period from the beginning of the current year to the current month of the current year and their planned values for the current month and the following months of the current year. It is indicated that when constructing the indicator s1a on the specified principles, it can be calculated not only as a fiscal gap of the one-year budget constraint, but also in two alternative ways: by calculating the difference between the actual value of the change in the state debt of Ukraine for the period from the beginning of the current year to the current month of the current year and its planned value for this period, as well as by calculating the difference, taken with the opposite sign, between the actual value of the adjusted balance of the State Budget of Ukraine for the period from the beginning of the current year to the current month of the current year and its planned value for this period. The author reveals the diagnostic capabilities of the indicator s1a namely: the ability to reflect the current state in the state finance sector, as well as in the financial sector in whole, the ability to define the impact of its components on it, the ability to define the impact of amending the Law of Ukraine on the State Budget of Ukraine for the current year and the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on approval of the forecast of economic and social development of Ukraine on it. It is noted that the use of the indicator s1a will strengthen the validity of decisions on issues of fiscal and debt policy.