This pamphlet considers some of the issues and concerns that underlie the IMF's approach to fiscal adjustment-namely, the ways governments can use their fiscal stabilization and structural policies to achieve macroeconomic objectives relating to growth, inflation, and the balance of payments. It...

Conventional wisdom teaches that the output response upon a fiscal expansion is higher under fixed than floating exchange rates for a small open economy. We analyse the effects of fiscal expansions using a New Keynesian model and find that this result reverses in times of sovereign default risk....