Fiscal impulse measures are used in the WEO and elsewhere to indicate the changing impact of the budget on the economy. Such measures are intended to provide more accurate indications of whether the budget is becoming more or less expansionary than would just observing moments in the actual...

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 analyzes the decision of a government facing electoral uncertainty to implement structural reforms in the presence of fiscal restraints similar to the Stability and Growth Pact. The model shows that a pact may harm structural reforms, sacrificing future growth for present stability....

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...

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...

The paper examines the direction of causality between total government expenditure and revenue in oil-dependent GCC countries by utilizing a cointegration and error-correction modeling framework, and by calculating a variance decomposition analysis. In addition, it presents impulse responses to...

Austria faces significant population aging. This will increase public spending on pensions, health care, and long-term care, while tax and social security revenues will fall. This paper analyzes the fiscal burden facing Austria due to aging and the policy steps necessary to address it. The paper...

This paper assesses the effects of expenditure composition as well as fiscal adjustment on economic growth in a sample of 39 low-income countries during the 1990s. The paper finds that strong budgetary positions and fiscal consolidation are generally associated with higher economic growth in...

Oil-producing countries face challenges arising from the fact that oil revenue is exhaustible, volatile, and uncertain, and largely originates from abroad. Reflecting these challenges, the paper proposes some important general principles for the formulation and assessment of fiscal policy in...

This paper examines fiscal cyclicality in the CEMAC region during 1980-2008. The issue has attracted very little empirical interest but is important if fiscal policies are to play a role in mitigating external shocks that exacerbate economic cycles across the region. We assess whether fiscal...