cover image: A primer on the government of Alberta's budget

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A primer on the government of Alberta's budget

24 Jan 2013

The most notable of these are the Heritage Fund, designed to act as a savings fund for the benefit of future generations, and the Sustainability Fund, intended to act as a kind of rainy day fund to absorb the budgetary consequences of unexpected events. [...] It comes in the form of royalties (a form of tax) that the government imposes on the production of natural gas, crude oil, bitumen, and coal, and in the form of land sales and leases. [...] The hope is that the value of the surpluses enjoyed during periods of faster-than- normal growth (the area identified by the red vertical lines) will offset the value of the deficits suffered during periods of slower-than-normal growth (the sum of the areas in blue and in red dots). [...] In this way the surpluses will enable the repayment of the debt accrued earlier or the replacement of the savings used up. [...] A government’s net debt — or, what is the same thing, the value of its net financial assets — is the balance between the value of gross financial assets and the value of gross debt.
government politics budget economics economy taxation finance fiscal policy investment debt economic policy economists government policy government spending policy interest investments tax government budget taxpayers government debt debt service deficit government budget balance deficits deficit spending budgets and budgeting

Authors

Kneebone, Ronald D

Pages
16
Published in
Canada

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