In this paper, I demonstrate that an indicator which is commonly used to assess the long-term fiscal sustainability of public finances in EU member states (“S2”) is also defined if government borrowing rates are assumed to be permanently lower than the growth rate of GDP. I illustrate this...

At the request of the Government of Liberia (GoL), the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) led an external assessment of the central government’s public financial management (PFM) systems based on the Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) methodology. The assessment was...

We examine the sustainability of public finances and its determinants for 19 Eurozone countries from 1995 to 2020. We conclude for the existence of panel cointegration between government revenues and expenditures; primary government balance and one-period lagged public debt-to-GDP ratio; and...

We evaluate the impact of government spending efficiency on fiscal sustainability for a panel of 35 OECD countries during the period of 2007-2020. To answer our research question we first compute the magnitude of the responses of government revenues to changes in government spending. Next, we...

Using two measures of the fiscal position, the cyclically adjusted primary budget balance (CAPB) and the total budget balance, we assess the Twin Deficit Hypothesis for the Euro Area in the period 1995-2020. Furthermore, we estimate time-varying coefficients of the current account balance...

This paper exploits a novel trial in Norwegian local elections in 2011 to provide empirical evidence on fiscal performance from lowering the minimum voting age from 18 to 16. Using a difference in differences research strategy, we find that this voting age change reduced the net operating...

The budget dispute between Italy and the European Commission in 2018 gave new impetus for the debate about the reliability of output gap estimation methods and their use for calculating structural budget balances. In this paper we review the main properties of the mainstream approaches and...

Macroeconomic conditions deteriorated in 2012. Growth slowed to 2.7 percent from 5 percent in 2011. Both the external and fiscal deficits widened significantly, to 10 percent and 7.6 percent of GDP, respectively. The 2012 fiscal outcome entailed a significant slippage from the authorities’...

We assess the role that nontradable goods play as a determinant of fiscal spending multipliers, making use of a two-sector model. While fiscal multipliers increase with the share of nontradable goods, an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between multiplier size and the import share....

I use new data on central and general governments for 23 OECD countries over the period 1960-2015 (unbalanced panel) to examine fiscal performance under minority governments. The results do not suggest that minority governments had higher fiscal deficits and public expenditure than majority...