This paper provides a perspective on how the IMF assesses a “sound fiscal policy,” focusing principally on industrial and emerging market economies. It observes six central criteria: the short-term fiscal policy stance, with greater emphasis on automatic stabilizers than discretionary fiscal...

The paper discusses reform in public financial management in small, resource-constrained economies such as the Pacific island countries (PICs). It describes the efforts undertaken by PICs in the past and assesses their results. A principal conclusion is that reform in public financial management...

This paper seeks to revive the case for countries to self-insure against economic growth slowdowns by issuing GDP-indexed bonds. We simulate the effects of GDP-indexed bonds under different assumptions about fiscal policy reaction functions and their output effects and find that they could...