We construct unanticipated government spending shocks for 103 developing countries from 1990 to 2015 and study their effects on income distribution. We find that unanticipated fiscal consolidations lead to a long-lasting increase in income inequality, while fiscal expansions lower inequality....

This paper investigates the role of informality in affecting the magnitude of the fiscal multiplier in a panel of 141 countries, using the local projections method. We find a strong negative relationship between the degree of informality and the size of the fiscal multiplier. This result holds...

This paper examines the distributional effects of fiscal consolidation. Using episodes of fiscal consolidation for a sample of 17 OECD countries over the period 1978–2009, we find that fiscal consolidation has typically had significant distributional effects by raising inequality, decreasing...

This paper provides new empirical evidence of the macroeconomic effects of public investment in developing economies. Using public investment forecast errors to identify unanticipated changes in public investment, the paper finds that increased public investment raises output in the short and...

We study the impact of fluctuations in global oil prices on domestic inflation using an unbalanced panel of 72 advanced and developing economies over the period from 1970 to 2015. We find that a 10 percent increase in global oil inflation increases, on average, domestic inflation by about 0.4...

This paper provides new evidence on the existence and magnitude of the 'twin deficits' in developing economies. It finds that a one percent of GDP unanticipated increase in the government budget balance improves, on average, the current account balance by 0.8 percentage point of GDP. This effect...