Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. ACE TAX SYSTEMS -- III. ACE SYSTEMS IN PRACTICE -- IV. PREVIOUS ANALYSES OF ACE TAX SYSTEMS -- V. THE BRAZILIAN ACE VARIANT -- VI. CONCLUSION -- Appendix I. Effective Tax Rates -- REFERENCES.

After trailing Euro Area inflation closely in the recent past, inflation in the Western Balkans has accelerated faster since early 2022 on the back of the shocks to global commodity prices, strong recovery from the pandemic, and lingering supply bottlenecks. This paper employs two complementary...

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are increasingly an important vehicle for several Western Balkan countries to increase investment to reduce their infrastructure gaps. While there are benefits to well-designed and implemented PPPs, they also carry a potential for large fiscal risks and...

Several emerging economies have, until recently, experienced large government surpluses and accelerating foreign exchange reserve accumulation. This has been accompanied by economic booms, exchange rate appreciations and in some cases increases in domestic inflation. We show that one way to...

Intro -- Contents -- I. INTRODUCTION -- II. MAIN OBJECTIVES OF THE BSA -- III. KEY FEATURES OF THE FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS -- IV. DATA METHODOLOGIES AND AVAILABILITY FOR BALANCE SHEET ANALYSIS -- V. USING TIMELY, HIGH-FREQUENCY BALANCE SHEET ANALYSIS IN SURVEILLANCE -- VI. CONCLUSIONS -- REFERENCES.

This paper assembles a comprehensive dataset of the currency composition of countries' external balance sheets for 50 economies over the period 1990-2020. We document the following findings: (i) the US dollar and the euro still dominate global external balance sheets; (ii) there were striking...

The assessment of external positions and exchange rates of member countries is a key mandate of the IMF. The External Balance Assessment (EBA) methodology has provided the framework for conducting external sector assessments by Fund staff since its introduction in 2012. This paper provides the...

This paper presents a new model for studying international capital flows and debt dynamics that emphasizes the role played by expectations concerning future trade flows and returns. I use the model to estimate the drivers of the U.S. external position and capital flows between 1973 and 2008. The...

Despite substantial debt relief to HIPC Initiative completion point countries, long-term debt sustainability remains a challenge. This paper examines a number of structural factors affecting external debt sustainability. It shows that in HIPC completion point countries (i) the export base...