Over many years rises and fall of world oil prices have been repeatedly reflected in the boom-bust cycles in oil-exporting countries the world over. The recent spectacular rise and equally spectacular fall in prices provides an opportunity to inquire whether anything is different this time. In...

In this paper, we consider the design of the surveillance, and, in particular, the fiscal criteria in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) with the view to ensuring they are consistent with internal and external sustainability. This consistency is important within a...

Under a monetary dominant (MD) regime, the primary surplus adjusts to limit debt growth, permitting monetary policy to be conducted independently of fiscal financing requirements. In Brazil, some evidence favors an MD regime for 1995–97, but not for the decade of the 1990s as a whole. While...

This paper critically reviews recent work regarding the sustainability of public debt. It argues that Debt Sustainability Analyses (DSAs) should be more than mere mechanical simulation exercises. Instead, a DSA should be linked to some objective regarding the distribution of fiscal burdens and...

In the extensive empirical work carried out across the IMF on oil-producing sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries, the notion of ""sustainability"" is often directed toward fiscal policies, and, in particular, views on the ""optimal"" non-oil primary fiscal deficit. The bulk of this work does not,...