Data published in IMF country staff reports and International Financial Statistics (IFS) may differ for identical variables and, at times, users may be unaware of the reasons for these differences and lack the information needed to permit reconciliation. Such discrepancies stem principally from...

This paper examines the linkages between key macroeconomic statistics: external debt, balance of payments, government finance, and monetary statistics, which enable analysts and policy makers to monitor economic developments. The paper reviews statistical compilation issues and concludes that,...

A useful but little known feature of the IMF’s Government Finance Statistics Yearbook (GFSY) is the information on the structure of governments. Institutional tables, included in the GFSY, provide detail on the central, state, and local levels of governments, social security, and...

Conventional wisdom postulates that there are benefits from decentralizing government finances but there is little empirical evidence about actual country practices. This paper presents data on fiscal decentralization for about 80 countries over a period of about 20 years (1990-2008) from the...

This paper re-examines the stock-flow discrepancies of government debt and deficits and correlation with fiscal transparency. Applying the fully integrated relationship between financial stocks and flows allows for a more refined analysis of the deterministic components that make up the...

The demand for high quality detailed public finance statistics covering a globally representative sample of countries has increased dramatically during the recent financial crisis. Due to the complexity of public finance statistics, however, such data tend to be either available in...

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 investigates whether the planned revision of the IMF’s A Manual on Government Finance Statistics should advocate an accrual basis of recording over the essentially cash basis of recording in the previous manual. The paper concludes that the revised manual should advocate an accrual...