This 2013 Article IV Consultation highlights that in a context of weakening economic conditions in Europe and sizeable fiscal consolidation and domestic policy uncertainty, the French economy flat lined in 2012. However, recent improvements in economic indicators support the expectation of a...

This paper investigates the empirical characteristics of income inequality in China and a panel of BRIC+ countries over the period 1980–2013, with a focus on the redistributive contribution of fiscal policy. Using instrumental variable techniques to deal with potential endogeneity, we...

We combine state-level fiscal data with household survey data to assess the links between sub-national fiscal policy and income inequality in Brazil over the period 1995-2011. The results indicate that a tighter fiscal stance at the sub-national level is not associated with a deterioration in...

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...

KEY ISSUES Unleashing Italy’s Potential The economy is struggling to emerge from a prolonged balance-sheet recession… Tight credit conditions, weak corporate balance sheets, and deeply-rooted structural rigidities continue to weigh on domestic demand. The high level of public debt...

The GPM project is designed to improve the toolkit for studying both own-country and cross-country linkages. This paper creates a special version of GPM that includes the four largest Euro Area (EA) countries. The EA countries are more vulnerable to domestic and external demand shocks because...