This paper presents twelve budget institutions that can support planning and delivery ofcredible fiscal strategies in the fiscal policy-making process. The resulting framework is applied to seven low-income countries and the status of their budget institutions compared to the G-20 advanced and...

This paper analyzes the relationship between fiscal adjustment and real GDP growth in a panel of 26 transition economies during 1992-2001. Unlike most previous studies using cross-country regressions, the paper finds a positive and statistically significant relationship between fiscal adjustment...

Achieving fiscal consolidation without undermining growth and poverty-reduction efforts is a key policy challenge in many countries. Using India as an illustration, this paper shows how a mix of well-designed taxation and spending policies can help address these challenges. On the tax side, the...

We examine the short- and long-term movements of government spending relative to output in 51 countries. We find that in the short term, the main components of government spending increase with output in about half of the sample countries, with some variation across spending categories and...

The volume collects the essays presented at the 15th Workshop on Public Finance organised by Banca d'Italia in Perugia from 4 to 6 April 2013. The workshop focused on the link between fiscal policy and macroeconomic imbalances and comprised four sessions. The first session concentrated on the...

This paper assesses the effects of fiscal consolidations associated with public debt reduction on medium-term output growth during periods of private debt deleveraging. The analysis covers 107 countries and 79 episodes of public debt reduction driven by discretionary fiscal adjustments during...

This paper studies the evolution of worldwide military spending during 1970-2018. It finds thatmilitary spending in relation to GDP is converging, but into three separate groups of countries. Inthe largest group, responsible for 90 percent of worldwide spending, outlays have remainedstubbornly...

This paper assesses the effects of expenditure composition as well as fiscal adjustment on economic growth in a sample of 39 low-income countries during the 1990s. The paper finds that strong budgetary positions and fiscal consolidation are generally associated with higher economic growth in...