This paper assesses the dynamic impact of global macroeconomic conditions, commodity price movements, shifts in portfolio preferences, and domestic shocks on fiscal outcomes-notably the budget deficit, its main components, and debt-across a wide range of countries. Heterogeneity is investigated...

We study whether multiyear fiscal adjustment plans in 17 OECD countries during 1980-2011 have been associated with market pressure. We find that only a third (34 percent) of the consolidations occurred under market pressure, suggesting that market pressure is important but not the main element...

We construct the first comprehensive dataset of contingent liability realizations in advanced and emerging markets for the period 1990-2014. We find that contingent liability realizations are a major source of fiscal distress. The average fiscal cost of a contingent liability realization is 6...

Paraguay faces a trade-off between building fiscal credibility and amending the existing fiscal rule to accommodate infrastructure investment and provide space for countercyclical policies. In this paper, we discuss several alternative fiscal rules for Paraguay and present simulations of debt...

The oil price decline creates an opportunity to dismantle energy subsidies, which escalated with high oil prices. This paper assesses energy subsidies in Latin America and the Caribbean — about 1.8 percent of GDP in 2011-13 (approximately evenly split between fuel and electricity), and about...

Delegating fiscal decision making power to sub-national governments has been an area of interest for both academics and policymakers given the expectation that it may lead to better and more efficient provision of public goods and services. Decentralization has, however, often occurred on the...

This paper estimates fiscal multipliers for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Using OLS panel fixed effects on a sample of six countries from 1990-2016, results indicate that GCC fiscal multipliers have declined in recent years which would make the on-going fiscal consolidation less...

This paper estimates the causal effect of fiscal rules on fiscal balances in a panel of 142 countries over the period 1985-2015. Our instrumental variable strategy exploits the geographical diffusion of fiscal rules across countries. The intuition is that reforms in neighboring countries may...

This paper discusses the short- and medium-term fiscal implications of government wage bill spending. Working with a sample of 137 advanced, emerging and low-income countries, we use a panel VAR approach to identify differences in the dynamic behavior of revenues, non wage expenditures, and the...