General government structural balance, Percent of potential GDP

The structural budget balance refers to the general government cyclically adjusted balance adjusted for nonstructural elements beyond the economic cycle. These include temporary financial sector and asset price movements as well as one-off, or temporary, revenue or expenditure items. The cyclically adjusted balance is the fiscal balance adjusted for the effects of the economic cycle; see, for example, A. Fedelino. A. Ivanova and M. Horton "Computing Cyclically Adjusted Balances and Automatic Stabilizers" IMF Technical Guidance Note No. 5, http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/tnm/2009/tnm0905.pdf.