Today’s post by Lisa Martin plots a summary of historical National Treasury expenditure forecast errors. As we showed in our paper on fiscal forecast errors, expenditure projections increased dramatically in the 2019 Budget Review, with positive forecast errors for fiscal year 2018/19 onwards, implying the under-estimation of future spending.
Footnote
In the chart above, the T-1 label shows forecast errors for in-year ‘revised estimates’. The labels T, T+1, T+2 compare outcomes from the latest Budget Review (the 2026 edition) to the three Medium Term Expenditure Forecast years published in earlier Budget Reviews. For example, the
outcome published for 2024/25 in the 2026 BR is compared with
previous estimates/forecasts to create the ‘T+2’ (grey) bar at 2022/23, ‘T+1’ (red) bar at 2023/24, ‘T’ (light blue) bar at 2024/25 and the ‘T-1’ (dark blue) bar at 2025/26.
EconData makes it easy to assess fiscal forecast errors, contact us for a demo.
