In the Summer of 1998, the Executive Board discussed a set of three papers prepared by the staff that focused on the likey impact of EMU on selected non-EU countries. In recognition of the contribution these papers could make to the literature and discussion of EMU, the Board requested that this...

How to entrench hard-won gains, increase resilience to shocks, and improve growth performance to reduce poverty? As Central America moves forward in regaining macroeconomic stability, these are the challenges. This study analyzes Central America’s real, fiscal, monetary, and financial...

This paper describes the methodology and the data used to compute nominal and real effective exchange rate indices in the International Monetary Fund’s Information Notice System (INS). In particular, it highlights improvements to the INS implemented over 1994-96, including modifications to the...

The common-pool problem is a central issue in the relationship between the political structure of jurisdictions and the size of public spending. Models predict that, other things being equal, greater political districting of a jurisdiction raises the scale of government. This paper presents new...

We compare the general tax provisions and investment incentives in the Philippines to six other east-Asian economies-Malaysia, Indonesia, Lao, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand. We calculate effective tax rates and find that general effective tax rates are relatively high in the Philippines, while...

Recent work on the political economy of fiscal policy has asked how budgetary institutions affect fiscal outcomes. But what determines the budgetary institutions? In this paper I consider one such institution: the executive veto. A simple theoretical framework predicts that jurisdictions with...

This paper presents evidence on the political and economic determinants of social sector spending from a panel dataset. The principal finding is that democratization in countries, as measured by within-country variation in subjective indices of democracy, is a significant predictor of government...

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...