Fiscal Planner

Generate plausible government budgets for fictional nations

How it works: Set up your economy (or import from the Economy Generator), then configure revenue sources and spending categories. The planner validates your budget against real-world benchmarks and can project it forward 3-5 years. See methodology and data sources.

Import from Economy Generator

Nation Parameters

Currency

Budget Parameters

Methodology, Assumptions & Data Sources

Data Sources

  • OECD Revenue Statistics (2024) — tax-to-GDP ratios, revenue composition by source
  • IMF Government Finance Statistics — government spending breakdowns, deficit and debt data
  • World Bank Open Data (2024) — GDP, population, development indicators
  • SIPRI Military Expenditure Database (2024) — defense spending as share of GDP and budget

How Revenue & Spending Profiles Work

The tool calculates baseline revenue and spending compositions from three factors:

  1. Development level sets the starting profile (e.g., pre-industrial economies rely more on tariffs; advanced economies rely on income tax).
  2. Economic model applies multipliers (e.g., state-directed economies have higher SOE revenue; free markets have lower payroll taxes).
  3. Resource endowment / stability applies further shifts (e.g., oil-rich countries have high royalty revenue; conflict zones increase defense spending).

All shares are normalized to 100% after applying multipliers. Users can override any slider manually.

Health vs. Plausibility

The tool uses two separate assessment systems:

  • Budget Health (Stable / Stressed / Distressed) measures fiscal sustainability — deficit size, debt levels, spending-to-revenue balance. Real countries often show stress here; Japan has 264% debt-to-GDP but functions because of unique circumstances.
  • Plausibility (Plausible / Questionable / Implausible) checks whether the budget could exist — tax rates within development level capacity, revenue mix consistent with economic model, spending categories within realistic ranges.

Intended Use

This tool is designed for fictional worldbuilding and educational exploration. The 19 country presets use real-world data to calibrate the model. Plausibility checks are calibrated so that real-world presets pass as plausible, even when their fiscal health is poor.