This note analyzes the medium- and long-term prospects of the hydrocarbon sector as a source of growth. Substantial hydrocarbon and financial reserves implies a sizable upward shift in the sustainable expenditure path. Rather than suggesting a specific fiscal rule, four simple alternatives are...

Russia’s large oil and gas reserves play a key role in its economic development. As with many other large oil exporters, Russia’s energy wealth is also posing numerous challenges to macroeconomic management. Although fiscal policy has saved a large part of the oil windfall in the...

Public debt in the Middle East increased during the mid-1990s mainly because of fiscal expansions. It decreased in recent years, thanks to high oil revenue, economic growth, some primary non-oil fiscal adjustment, and debt relief. While countries in the Middle East appear to have adequately...

Oil funds have become increasingly popular in oil exporting countries during the recent surge in oil prices. However, the literature on the contribution is small, tends to focus narrowly on their fiscal benefits, and concludes that they are redundant of such funds-in other words, that well...

The main purposes of this paper are to review the operational modalities and experience of oil funds currently in place in Norway, Chile (copper), the State of Alaska, Venezuela, Kuwait, and Oman, and to draw some preliminary conclusions on their contribution to enhance fiscal management. The...

Buoyant oil prices have allowed oil-producing countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA OPCs) to increase oil exports and fiscal revenues, providing them with resources necessary to address the pressing social needs. To preclude another boom-bust cycle, this paper advocates the definition of a fiscal...

This paper studies the effects of demand and supply shocks in the global crude oil market on several measures of countries' external balance, including the oil and non-oil trade balances, the current account, and changes in net foreign assets (NFA) during 1975-2004. We explicitly take a global...

Rapid private sector credit growth in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia has been a result of strong economic growth, financial deepening, and banks’ willingness to explore consumer credit markets. Economic growth, the initial ratio of private sector credit to GDP, price...

Policymakers in oil-exporting countries confront the question of how to allocate oil revenues among consumption, saving, and investment in the face of high income volatility. We study this allocation problem in a precautionary saving and investment model under uncertainty. Consistent with data...

Employing a dynamic panel regression, this study estimates the medium-term current account position for three subgroups of emerging market and developing countries with shared economic characteristics. The fundamental determinants of the macroeconomic balance approach to current account...