type="main" xml:lang="en" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>This paper reviews the recent experience of a group of Latin American inflation-targeting (IT) nations. We document repeated and large deviations from the standard IT framework: exchange market interventions have been widespread; the real exchange rate has often...</p>

Over the past quarter-century, Chile has proven that the unthinkable is possible: A middle-income, natural resource–producing nation can have a fiscal policy that is both stable and sustainable. The core of this policy has been very simple: Act responsibly, design policy for the long run, and...

According to standard economic theory, fiscal policy should be countercyclical. In the neoclassical smoothing model of Barro (1979), a government should optimally run surpluses in good times and deficits in bad times. That is the same a government should do, though for different reasons, in the...

We revisit the issue of fiscal procyclicality in commodity-rich nations–commodity republics in the nomenclature of this paper. Since commodity prices are plausibly a main driver of fiscal policy outcomes in these countries, we focus on the behavior of fiscal variables across the commodity...

This paper reviews the recent experience of a half-dozen Latin American inflation targeting (IT) nations. Repeated and large deviations from the standard IT framework are documented: exchange market interventions have been lasting and widespread; the real exchange rate has often become a target of...

Fluctuations in commodity prices are often associated with macroeconomic volatility. But not all nations are created equal in this regard. The macro response to commodity booms and busts depends both on the structural characteristics of the economy and on the policy framework that is in place....

Original sin, coupled with other financial imperfections, causes macroeconomic penance of two kinds: adverse shocks have larger and more persistent effects and monetary policy becomes less effective as a shock absorber. But macroeconomic damnation is not inevitable: in some cases, suitable...