Fiscal performance in Latin America looks much improved this decade compared to the 1980s or 1990s. Is this a "structural" improvement or likely to be transitory? This paper answers this question by estimating the relationship between non-commodity revenue and the economic cycle, and evaluating...

This paper continues the study of optimal fiscal policy in a growing economy by exploring a case in which the government simultaneously provides three main categories of expenditures with distortionary tax finance: public production services, public consumption services, and state-contingent...

We present a simple model of petroleum exploration and development that can be applied to study the performance of alternative tax systems and identify potential distortions. Although the model is a highly simplified, it incorporates many factors and some of the key tradeoffs that would...

The paper examines fiscal sustainability issues for the case of Eritrea but has wider implications for addressing fiscal and debt sustainability. It begins with a formal definition and explanation of analytical sustainability indicators, followed by an assessment of the causes of fiscal deficits...

Asset booms and sectoral changes can distort traditional estimates of structural fiscal revenue, and could lead to serious fiscal policy errors. This paper extends the estimation of structural revenues to take account of asset prices and sectoral changes, and applies this to the case of Ireland,...

Conventional wisdom postulates that there are benefits from decentralizing government finances but there is little empirical evidence about actual country practices. This paper presents data on fiscal decentralization for about 80 countries over a period of about 20 years (1990-2008) from the...

This paper highlights the importance of debt composition in setting optimal fiscal and monetary policy over short-run business cycles and in the long run. Nominal debt as state-contingent debt can be a significant policy tool to reduce the volatility of distortionary government policy, thereby...