This article argues that, although effective strategic choices for achieving global development goals need to be based on assessments of the costs and benefits of alternative approaches, existing methods of arriving at such assessments are highly unreliable, in particular deriving from...

A number of strategies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and associated cost estimates have recently been presented, most influentially by the Millennium Project and the World Bank. The models underlying the recommended strategies are flawed, as a result of their reliance on...

This study critically evaluates analytical models presently used to estimate the cost of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) from sources including the UN Millennium Project, the UN Development Programme, the World Bank and the Zedillo Commission. Effective strategic choices for...

Undertakes a content analysis of 2009 - 2010 IMF Article IV consultations for a sample of thirty low income and twenty middle income countries on fiscal adjustment, inflation targets, employment generation, poverty reduction and expansion of social protection.

We explore the normative fiscal assessments of the Finance Commission of India, and realisation of fiscal policy with regard to Central Finances over the period 1990-2012. We employ the Theil's inequality coefficient to investigate the magnitude of assessment errors and its partitioning in to...

When the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was created, its purpose was to support the new system of fixed exchange rate regimes. With the breakdown of the par-value system, its article on exchange-rate arrangements?Article IV?had to be revised. Per the revised version, the IMF would annually...

The paper on which this One Pager is based (Roy, Abu-Ismail and Ramos, 2011) suggests concrete policy options which would create the fiscal space needed for structural transformation. After analysing the fiscal constraints faced by different countries and country groupings in the region, the...

When the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was created during the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference in 1944, its purpose was ?to provide a framework that facilitates the exchange of goods, services, and capital among countries, and that sustains sound economic growth.? In that...

The fundamental development challenge in the Arab region is one of economic transformation or, more pertinent, a lack thereof. Heavy sectoral weights of extractive industries lead to dependence on global oil prices, even in oil-producing countries. The structure of production limits employment...