Abstract. In this paper, we employed the methodology used by the international organizations (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development – OECD, International Monetary Fund – IMF and the European Commission). It is a two-step approach that enables to estimate the structural budget balance in Tunisia for the 1972-2014 period, as an indicator of discretionary fiscal policy. The importance of this indicator is derived from the fact that it helps evaluate the fiscal policy stance. The empirical results showed that the deterioration of the budget balance is due to the economic fluctuations. In Tunisia, it can be confirmed that fiscal policy is largely counter-cyclical.

Keywords: Fiscal policy, Output gap, Structural budget balance, Tunisia.