This paper presents a new database of fiscal consolidations for 14 Latin American and Caribbean economies during 1989-2016. We focus on discretionary changes in taxes and government spending primarily motivated by a desire to reduce the budget deficit and long-term fiscal health and not by a...

We estimate the short-term effects of fiscal consolidation on economic activity in 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. We examine contemporaneous policy documents to identify changes in fiscal policy motivated by a desire to reduce the budget deficit and not by responding to...

This paper examines the distributional effects of fiscal austerity. Using episodes of fiscal consolidation measures for a sample of 17 OECD countries over the period 1978-2009, we find that fiscal consolidation episodes have typically led to a significant and long-lasting increase in inequality....