"Despite significant progress in economic reform throughout the 1990s and an exemplary development of the policymaking framework in the second part of the decade, Brazil suffered a major public debt and currency crisis in 2002. Though the political origin of the uncertainty cannot be ignored,...

Bulgaria has achieved impressive economic performance over the last two decades. Nevertheless, recent growth of gross domestic product (GDP) and productivity has slowed since the global financial crisis, and the country faces medium- to long-term labor shortages and skills mismatches driven by...

"The authors propose a "bottom up" approach to link public investment programs with a class of macro models recently developed to quantify Strategy Papers for Human Development (SPAHD) in low-income countries. The methodology involves establishing constant-price projections of investment outlays...

"The authors explore the relationship between fiscal rules and capital budgeting. The current budgetary approach to limit deficits to a fixed portion of GDP or to balance budgets could undermine incentives to invest in public capital with long-run returns since politicians concerned about...

This report summarizes the findings of a review of public investment management (PIM) practices in the Western Balkans carried out with an eye to improving practices over the medium term, sharing experiences on a regional basis, providing some initial specific recommendations and identifying...

This note focuses on the second of these reform agendas, and in particular on how the institutional and organizational system for public investment planning and budgeting can be improved. Considerable analytical work has already been done on the macroeconomic and fiscal framework, and the Fiscal...

This report addresses key issues on macroeconomic stability, efficient allocation of public expenditures, public sector staffing, and public finance management. The fiscal sustainability analysis carried out for this report indicates that serious adjustments will be needed to improve Burundi's...