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...

Argentina has committed itself to a reform of its revenue-sharing system. This paper examines this system and the issues involved in its redesign, and discusses the pros and cons of various options with a view to specifying a preferred approach.

Unlike conventional fiscal sustainability assessments, the Value-at-Risk approach developed in this paper explicitly captures the contribution of key risk variables to public sector vulnerability. In an illustrative application to Ecuador, the VaR approach confirms a significant risk of...

This paper examines fiscal sustainability and resource mobilization in the Dominican Republic. The fiscal position appears to be sustainable, if resource mobilization is strengthened. If expenditure continues to rise (relative to GDP), without any further fiscal adjustment, indicators of...

The fiscal position of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) has deteriorated significantly in recent years, resulting in sharp increases in public debt. The sustainability of public debt is examined using the public sector budget constraint to derive the maximum public-debt-to-GDP ratio...

External shocks pose major challenges to fiscal policy makers through lower output and large fiscal imbalances. This paper analyzes the case of Moldova, which faced parallel crises a decade apart: the Russian crisis of 1998 and the global financial crisis of 2008-2009. The country went through...

The paper reviews the main structural reform issues facing Arab countries in the remainder of the 1990s. While the nature, extent, and implications of the policy challenges differ among individual countries in the Arab region, several aspects are common to a large number of them. Accordingly,...

The paper reviews the principles and practical considerations involved in the choice between foreign and domestic financing of fiscal deficits, and derives a series of recommendations broadly applicable to Central and West African countries. The paper develops a simple analytical framework and...

This paper discusses the findings of fiscal transparency reports on standards and codes (ROSCs) for most EU accession candidate countries. Emphasis is given to the need to establish effective and accountable medium-term budget frameworks to establish policy credibility and anchor adjustment...