Fiscal burden in the European union member states

Abstract

The main purpose of the article is to assess impact of the last global financial crisis on the level of fiscal burden in Central European countries compared to old members of the EU. In the research, we consider fiscal burden as multidimensional phenomenon, which should be analyzed with multiple criteria analysis tools. Thus, classic taxonomic approach based on zero unitarisation method was applied, to create synthetic measure of the fiscal burden in the EU countries in 2004-2015. Member states' ranking was elaborated based on synthetic measure, and changes of the level of the fiscal burden during and after the crisis were assessed. The research confirmed lower level of the fiscal burden in Central Europe, than in EU-15, and that this disparity has only increased after the last financial crisis.