The paper compares fiscal cyclicality across regions and countries from 1960 to 2016. It finds that more than half of 170 countries analyzed in seven regions had, in more recent years, limited fiscal space, and that their fiscal policy was either cyclical or procyclical. This was particularly...

The recent decline in gross domestic product (GDP) growth in India raised a debate about whether it is a trend or a business cycle slowdown. We observe a cyclical downturn post-global financial crisis due to external and domestic conditions. With global recovery strengthening and appropriate...

The central objective of this paper is to empirically examine the issue of fiscal sustainability in developing Asia. To do so, we first diagnose the region's public finances by analyzing the evolution of key fiscal indicators over time and across subregions. We then estimate fiscal policy...

A crisis provides an opportunity to examine how an economy works under pathological conditions. What are the lessons? Markets work well most of the time. That said, the global financial crisis has weakened faith in the market's self-equilibrating qualities. Fiscal policy works well to offset...