Policy toward fiscal rules is an important issue in the countries of the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia). According to a rough estimate, the countries with rules (all but North Macedonia) have complied with their debt and...

Fiscal buffers have shrunk across the world. This paper argues that limited fiscal room in emerging market economies today is partly due to the commodity super cycle of 2000-15. The super cycle created the mirage that economic performance had structurally improved, mistaking a long,...

This paper outlines the structure and economic foundation of the World Bank's macroeconomic and fiscal model (MFMod). MFMod consists of individual country models for 181 countries. The models are used by country economists within the World Bank's Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment Global...