‘Not our problem’: UK Government’s fiscal obligations towards the privatised railway network
Analysts of public finance are devoting increasing attention to what have been termed implicit fiscal obligations of government, those that are not recognised in public sector accounts or budgets, but are nonetheless real, in the sense that future resource commitments have been potentially incurred. For example, an aging population in many countries implies that future expenditures (on pensions, health care, etc.) will increase more rapidly than revenue, given current tax rates. In theory, the projected deficits could be reduced by reducing pension or health entitlements, but this may be politically difficult if not impossible. Heller (2003) has attempted to draw ...