The authors analyze developments in general government spending and revenues for 26 former social economies for 1989-94. The data show that, rather than uniformly converting to a"Western European"norm, these reforming economies have followed a variety of patterns. Whether a country drifts toward...

This paper analyzes institutional arrangements for public debt management by reviewing the experience of OECD countries during the late 1980s and 1990s. It discusses principal-agent issues arising from the delegation of authority from the Minister of Finance to the debt management office and...

If a donor gives aid for a project that the recipient government would have undertaken anyway, the aid finances expenditures other than the intended project. The notion that aid in this sense may be"fungible"has recently received empirical support. The authors look at why aid isfungible or...

The authors analyze the effects of bilateral debt forgiveness on 32 low-income countries in Africa (1984-93). Asking whether it makes a difference for recipient countries to receive pure grants rather that official development assistance (ODA) debt relief, they focus on how one form of aid or...

The authors examine how governments finance and allocate public spending, with an eye to developing strategies for pricing publicly provided health services. They also examine the implications of current policy and the possibility for rationalizing competing government priorities. Because...