Bundeshaushalt und die Schuldenbremse

The Swiss debt brake demands that the federal budget be counter-cyclical. However, the GDP forecasts on which the federal budget relies are very poor, de-facto denying the Swiss parliament its constitutional right to setting counter-cyclical fiscal impulses. Experience shows that the federal budget has had counter-cyclical effects nonetheless. This result is obtained through the so-called automatic stabilisers, however, which operate independently of the debt brake rule. Moreover, systematic under-estimation of Swiss GDP dynamics have restricted the fiscal leeway of the parliament far more than the Swiss debt brake could have justified. As a result, Swiss federal debt decreased considerably at the expense of government investment in fighting climate change or resolving demographic challenges for the pension systems.A better implementation of the Swiss debt brake requires a significant improvement of the GDP forecasts underlying the budgetary process. Whether such an improvement can be achieved obviously remains an open issue, but some preliminary results prompt optimism.In order to observe the Swiss debt brake rule in a way that would also honour the parliament’s budgetary sovereignty it is strongly recommended to professionalize the GDP forecasting process as the key element of the budgetary process.