Russia entered the global crisis with strong fiscal position, low public debt, and large fiscal and monetary reserves, which helped it cushion the crisis shocks. But the rise in the non-oil fiscal deficit in 2007-08 and, more importantly, the massive impact of the global crisis in late 2008 and...

Interest rates fell sharply after Mexico's Brady deal, and private investment and growth recovered. The authors show that the main benefit of debt relief was not to lower expected payments but to reduce uncertainty. Reduced uncertainty was found to be the dominant factor in explaining the...

The authors use Mexican agriculture as a case study to analyze the transition problems that arise in most major economic reforms. They focus on the implications for policy design of the absence of efficient capital markets; on the welfare costs of reforming only gradually; on incentive problems...

The decline in private savings since 1982 is arguably the most important problem in high debt countries. A reversal of the trend is essential if growth is to be restored. Three factors predominate : 1) the extent of intertemporal substitution; 2) attitudes toward risk; and 3) private/public...

In many countries, well-meant ad hoc tax incentives proliferate over time, creating an opaque corporate tax structure and many unanticipated tax loopholes. Tax authorities in several countries have considered and sometimes introduced minimum corporate taxes. Liability under such a tax is...

Turkey's recovery from its debt crisis ( 1978 - 80 ) has made it the paragon of export led growth. The driving force behind the Turkish export miracle has remained a matter of debate. If what happened in Turkey was a spillover of its proximity to the Middle East, there is little other countries...

Can external restraints and internal balances be reconciled in Mexico at levels of savings and investment that allow satisfactory output growth? What is the role of fiscal policy, interest rates and exchange rates in bringing such a configuration about? How sensitive are the answers to external...

The authors show how the various methods commonly used to measure capital flight produce vastly different estimates (with a 100 percent difference between the lowest and the highest, in Mexico's case). They emphasize the importance of the conceptual approach to its measurement. First of all,...

The paper presents and applies an integrated framework to assess the consistency between fiscal deficits and other macroeconomic targets, in particular output growth and the rate of inflation. The model centers around the government budget constraint and can be used to either derive the...

Unsustainable fiscal deficits were the chief reason for the inflation that has persisted in Eastern Europe since 1989. Deficits need to be cut back, but by how much for a given inflation target? The authors develop a simple framework for debt, the deficit, and inflation to study the interactions...