With a declining birthrate and an aging population, Japan is increasingly finding itself in deeper financial difficulties. Recognizing these conditions, the government is now examining a framework for maintaining fiscal sustainability, mainly at the Council of Economic and Fiscal Policy. The...

This paper provides an evaluation of the long-term fiscal sustainability of advanced economies, based on current estimates of these economies’ current-policy fiscal trajectories. As will be quite evident, for many countries short-term fiscal measures, such as the debt-GDP ratio and the...

This paper provides an evaluation of the long-term fiscal sustainability of advanced economies, based on current estimates of these economies’ current-policy fiscal trajectories. As will be quite evident, for many countries short-term fiscal measures, such as the debt-GDP ratio and the...

In this paper we assess the record of different post reform governments in meeting their targets and improving both delivery and finances. A variety of indices are constructed, and consistency checks devised to measure relative performance. No government has achieved its targets, but the...

The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007–08 underlined the importance of maintaining fiscal space and fiscal sustainability. Even though many Asian economies implemented fiscal stimulus policies during the crisis period, their fiscal conditions generally improved rapidly...

The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007–08 underlined the importance of maintaining fiscal space and fiscal sustainability. Even though many Asian economies implemented fiscal stimulus policies during the crisis period, their fiscal conditions generally improved rapidly...

Recurrent large fiscal deficits and accumulating public debt frequently ring alarm bells around the world on the sustainability of U.S. federal fiscal policy. The present-value borrowing constraint, which states that, for the fiscal policy to be sustainable the current debt stock should match...

Does voter turnout affect policy outcomes? This long-standing question has been re-visited recently with close empirical scrutiny. These studies, however, commonly suffer from a problem of omitting variables correlated with both causal and outcome variables : specifically, immeasurable political...

Aided by strong economic growth the Singapore government has been able to keep both the tax rate and the government expenditure rate low and yet generate healthy budget surpluses year after year. Although the gap between the tax rate and the government expenditure rate is the obvious source of...

The aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 has called the export-led growth model of Asian economies into question. This paper describes the contribution that macroeconomic policy can make to promote a rebalancing of growth away from dependence on exports to...