The paper examines empirically the question of whether more unequal societies spend more on income redistribution than their more egalitarian counterparts. Theoretical arguments on this issue are inconclusive. The political economy literature suggests that redistributive spending is higher in...

In this paper, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have drawn together available research findings on the benefits of trade liberalization as well as on the obstacles to trade-oriented development

This paper reviews and analyzes broad developments and considers specific policy measures to foster saving. The chapter also describes trends in national saving rates of industrial countries in recent years and briefly discusses the prospects over the medium term. The paper also discusses the...

The paper shows that an increase in the aggregate fiscal deficit of the industrial countries may worsen the economic growth and fiscal balance of the developing countries that are burdened with external debt and facing current account constraints. The discussion is based on theoretical analysis...

This paper explains different features of the MULTI-region econometric MODel (MULTIMOD). MULTIMOD is designed to examine the effects on that baseline of scenarios that involve changes in policies in major countries and other exogenous changes in the economic environment. The Mark II version...

This paper proposes a package of policy reforms and a funding strategy to ensure that the Fund has the capacity to respond flexibly to LICs' needs during the pandemic and recovery. The key policy reforms proposed include: -- raising the normal annual/cumulative limits on access to PRGT resources...

Conventional fiscal accounting methodologies do not appropriately account for governments’ noncash policies, such as their contingent liabilities. When these liabilities are called, budget costs can be large, as evidenced by the United States’ saving and loan crisis. In general, deficit...

The optimal provision of loan guarantees or deposit insurance is examined in the context of an overlapping generations model. It is demonstrated that even in the face of a market imperfection that precludes diversification of the private sector’s loan portfolio to eliminate risk, full...

This paper highlights key issues pertinent for the understanding of international effects of domestic tax policies and of international tax harmonization. The analytical framework adopts the saving-investment balance approach to the analysis of international economic interdependence focusing on...