Some scholars have argued that direct distribution of natural resource revenues to the population would help resource-rich countries escape the “resource curse.†This discussion note analyzes whether this proposal is a viable policy alternative for resource-rich countries. The first...

The impact of higher petroleum prices on the aggregate price level, real growth, and income distribution is appraised within a multisector computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. A reduction in the government subsidy raises petroleum prices and production costs throughout the economy....

This paper analyzes the relationship between fiscal adjustment and real GDP growth in a panel of 26 transition economies during 1992-2001. Unlike most previous studies using cross-country regressions, the paper finds a positive and statistically significant relationship between fiscal adjustment...

Staff Discussion Notes showcase the latest policy-related analysis and research being developed by individual IMF staff and are published to elicit comment and to further debate. These papers are generally brief and written in nontechnical language, and so are aimed at a broad audience...

This paper assesses the effects of expenditure composition as well as fiscal adjustment on economic growth in a sample of 39 low-income countries during the 1990s. The paper finds that strong budgetary positions and fiscal consolidation are generally associated with higher economic growth in...

This paper studies the cyclical behavior of public spending on health and education in 150 countries during 1987 - 2007. It finds that spending on education and health is procyclical in developing countries and acyclical in developed countries. In addition, education and health expenditures...

The recent development literature stresses that countries that receive large revenues from natural resource endowments typically raise less revenue from domestic taxation, and that this creates governance problems because the lower domestic tax effort reduces the incentive for the public...

This paper investigates the political and economic determinants of successful fiscal adjustment in 25 emerging market economies from 1980 to 2001. The results show that large and back-loaded fiscal adjustments have the highest likelihood of success. Fiscal consolidations based on expenditure...

We examine the short- and long-term movements of government spending relative to output in 51 countries. We find that in the short term, the main components of government spending increase with output in about half of the sample countries, with some variation across spending categories and...