This paper examines varies areas of India´s fiscal policy, in particular fiscal discipline, the structure of government spending, the tax system and fiscal federalism. It describes reforms over the past decades which, as part of the overall economic reform agenda, helped lifting the Indian...

During the past decade, the formulation of fiscal policy has been increasingly founded on medium-term considerations associated with public debt and economic efficiency. In this regard, this paper, and the ones by Olivier Blanchard and Edward Gramlich in the same Working Paper Series, considers...

This paper examines the problems raised by the recent sharp increases in the ratio of public debt to GNP in most OECD Member countries. When interest rates exceed growth rates, this development appears as a symptom of instability in public finances. The paper also analyses the evolution of...

This paper discusses several aspects of the medium-term orientation of OECD countries' economic policies in the 1980s, concentrating on monetary and fiscal instruments. The developments that led to the adoption of such a "medium-term strategy", and the apparent analytical rationale for it, are...

Turkey recovered swiftly from the global financial crisis but sizeable macroeconomic imbalances arose in the process. High consumer price inflation and a wide current account deficit are sources of vulnerability. Even though below-potential growth helps rebalancing and disinflation, these...

Effective macroeconomic and structural policies helped Turkey bounce back quickly and strongly from the global crisis, with annual growth averaging close to 9% over 2010-11. However, the current account deficit widened to around 10% of GDP in 2011 and consumer price inflation rose to over 10%....

Substantial fiscal consolidation was achieved under the aegis of the 2003 Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act. While deficits widened anew in 2008 and 2009, against the backdrop of the global financial and economic crisis, efforts to reduce them have resumed since. To ensure...

This paper examines varies areas of India´s fiscal policy, in particular fiscal discipline, the structure of government spending, the tax system and fiscal federalism. It describes reforms over the past decades which, as part of the overall economic reform agenda, helped lifting the Indian...