The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

This paper surveys the fiscal landscape of Latin America. It analyzes external and domestic factors that over the years led to the deterioration of the fiscal accounts. It also discusses difficulties that are encountered in pursuing a sound fiscal policy under inflationary conditions. Issues...

The paper provides an overview of the main elements of pay systems that are typically used to remunerate government employees and, with reference to the experience of developed and developing countries, discusses structural issues frequently arising in the formulation of government pay policies:...

This paper develops a small analytical model to explore the relationship between the dynamics of macroeconomic adjustment and the timing of the implementation of an adjustment program featuring a nominal devaluation. The effects of postponing adjustment depend on the source of the original...

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the argument that debt relief would increase the incentive of a debtor country to make an adjustment effort (to invest) and that for this reason creditors may benefit by granting relief. It is shown that there are actually opposing incentive effects of...

The paper deals with the two parts of the short-run adjustment problem in developing countries: the improvement of the current account and the reduction of inflation, the main cause in both cases being usually a fiscal deficit. It is shown how the two parts are related. Distinctions are made...

The dynamic responses of a developing economy to a variety of policy and external shocks are studied using an empirical macroeconomic model which embodies rational expectations, perfect capital mobility, and import rationing. These features, which are relatively new in developing-country...

This paper examines the relationship between macroeconomic stabilization and market-oriented reform in planned economies. It emphasizes that market-oriented reform should enhance the likelihood that adjustment to exogenous disturbances will involve genuine adjustment in the sense of actually...

Mozambique is an economic success story in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Its remarkable achievements offer valuable lessons to other low-income countries in a post-stabilization economic phase, including how they can efficiently manage a scaling up of foreign aid aimed at poverty reduction. Of...