Fiscal policy: the budget

Published on October 29, 2015   25 min
Please wait while the transcript is being prepared...
0:00
Hi, everyone. My name is Sanjay Raja, and I'm an economist based in London, UK, specializing predominantly in macro and micro policy. The topic that we are going to look at today is on fiscal policy, and more specifically, on the budget and public debt.
0:17
So here we want to look at the government's budget and how it really impacts on society via tax, public spending, instances of public debt, and the like. So my aim here today is to really break down the barriers to economics and what it really means in the real world. I myself am not an academic in the strict sense. However, I do use macro and micro principles to guide my economic analysis. And that's what I'm hoping to show you today. So we're gonna really try and understand what the budget means to society and more specifically to you, and how it affects macroeconomic variables such as public debt. I'll say more about public debt a little bit later in the presentation. But for now, let's focus on the budget.
1:00
So the first thing we're gonna cover is 'what is fiscal policy?' and how it's implemented in practice. We're also going to be exploring public spending and receipts. Next, we'll focus on public debts and yields, two topics that really go hand in hand. And last but not least, a few concluding words to wrap up today's presentation.
1:20
So before we go on, here's my first question to everyone, and it's a bit of an open-ended question. In the context of the government, what is a budget? And when you think about this, I want you to think about how important it is to society. Now, take a minute, think about this, reflect on this, because I think this is quite an important piece. Now, budgets are very similar to that of household budgets in the way that we look at incoming and outgoing resources. Clearly, there are some differences, but overall, a household budget is very similar to that of the government's. So let's keep those thoughts in our mind as we go to the next 20 or so minutes in this presentation.