We construct a new, comprehensive instrument-level database of sovereign debt for 18 advanced and emerging countries over the period 1913-46. The database contains data on amounts outstanding for some 3,800 individual debt instruments as well as associated qualitative information, including...

Stock-flow adjustments are typically measured as the difference between changes in gross debt and deficits. These are interpreted as a proxy for unexplained fiscal discrepancies, and often associated with a lack of fiscal transparency. However, such measures fail to capture the role of financial...

This paper empirically investigates the relationship between privatization and measures of fiscal and macroeconomic performance. One of the main findings is that privatization proceeds transferred to the budget tend to be saved. Specifically, they are largely used to reduce domestic financing,...

The stylized facts of government finance in the Group of Seven (G-7) industrial countries show that revenues lag real GDP procyclically, while government spending in most cases fails to lead the economy procyclically. This finding is not confined to transfers but also applies to the wage...

The internal audit function has received increasing attention as an important component of government financial management and a tool for improving the performance of the government sector. Recently, a consensus has been reached on what audit standards governments should meet. This paper reviews...

The paper discusses some channels through which corruption affects growth such as the impact of corruption on enterprises, on the allocation of talent, and on investment. It also discusses the impact of corruption on some aspects of public finance

This paper explores initiatives to date by the IMF, financial markets, and civil society organizations to assess and utilize information on fiscal transparency. The results of surveys and interviews of rating agency analysts and surveys of civil society organizations on their level of awareness...

This note provides an overview of recent studies that have begun to investigate how differing moral perspectives shape attitudes toward tax and spending policies. Recent advances in evolutionary moral psychology and their application to survey-based economic analysis yield promising insights....

Effective public investment requires governments to address the "recurrent cost problem" to ensure operations and maintenance (O&M) expenditures are sufficient to sustain the flow of productive public capital services to private factors of production. Building on the model of Buffie et al...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...