OECD countries face daunting fiscal challenges following the substantial surge in debt-GDP ratios during the past four years, from already high levels in many cases. Fiscal consolidation is now the order of the day, and it takes on greater urgency against the backdrop of imminent budgetary...

This paper considers the case for adjusting measures of the cyclically-adjusted fiscal balance for exceptional movements in the terms of trade for those countries where production of commodities is a substantial share of output. For such countries exceptional movements in commodity prices, such...

Measuring cyclically-adjusted budget balances for OECD countries An important tool in the analysis of fiscal policy is the distinction between structural and cyclical components of the budget balance. This paper describes work undertaken to re-estimate and re-specify the elasticities underlying...

This paper assesses to what extent some components of government budgets affected by the macroeconomic situation operate to smooth the business cycle in individual OECD countries. It is shown that these automatic fiscal stabilisers have generally reduced cyclical volatility in the 1990s....