Public Sector Finances and the Crisis

Giorgia Maffini

Michael P Devereux

Clemens Fuest

Michael P Devereux Clemens Fuest and Giorgia Maffini of the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation consider some solutions for the restraint of the nation's public finances

The financial crisis and the resulting strong economic contraction have significantly deteriorated the UK national fiscal position. With a deficit over 12% of GDP in 2009 the United Kingdom has one of the highest deficits among the EU(15) members (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Public sector deficit 2009 (% of GDP)

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The reason why the UK deficit soared can be traced to the public spending plans set out in the 2007 Comprehensive Spending Review before the crisis materialised to its full extent (

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