This paper presents a model-based fiscal Taylor rule and a toolkit to assess the fiscal stance, defined as the change in the structural primary balance. This is built on the normative buffer-stock model of the government (Fournier, 2019) which includes key channels like hysteresis,...

A decade into the transition, many of the successor states of the former Soviet Union (FSU) continue to use energy sector quasi-fiscal activities (QFAs), especially low energy prices and the toleration of payment arrears, to provide large implicit and untargeted subsidies. These activities...

This paper proposes a framework for assessing fiscal sustainability in heavily indebted countries dependent on exhaustible resources, with reference to Gabon. It finds that fiscal sustainability could be achieved by: (i) developing a fiscal rule for the non-oil primary fiscal balance compatible...

The analysis in this paper suggests that the large fiscal deficits that Pakistan has experienced over most of the period since 1970 led to some crowding out of private investment, resulting in slower output growth than would otherwise have been observed. Past fiscal deficits have also resulted...

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...

This paper investigates fiscal developments in 112 countries during the 1990s. It finds that, while the overall fiscal balance improved in most of them, the composition of this improvement differed. In nonprogram countries, revenues increased modestly and expenditure declined sharply, while in...

In a number of oil producing countries, oil revenue accounts for the majority of government revenue, but is expected to be depleted in a relatively short time frame. Ensuring that fiscal policy is on a sustainable path is thus a high priority, but political and social adjustment costs create...

The increased budget deficit caused by the privatization of a public pension plan does not imply a relaxation of the stance of fiscal policy. The reform's impact on the fiscal stance and national saving depends primarily on its effect on the sum of explicit and implicit public debt and on 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...

Russia's regions are heavily exposed to regional income shocks because of an uneven distribution of natural resources and a Soviet legacy of heavily skewed regional specialization. Also, Russia has a limited mobility of labor and lacks fiscal instruments to deal with regional shocks. We assess...