Drawing on an expanded data set covering emerging markets and low-income countries as well as advanced economies, this issue examines the extent and makeup of global debt and asks what role fiscal policy can play in facilitating the adjustment. The analytical framework explicitly models the...

The authors describe the various ways in which the financial market crisis might affect workers, pension funds and governments. In 2008 the impact of the stock market decline on global pension assets was substantial (roughly 40 per cent, according to the authors' estimates for the G20...

This paper focuses on post-crisis fiscal priorities in the ASEAN-5 economies - Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Sound economic fundamentals and timely and forceful policy responses to the crisis, including fiscal stimulus, contributed to rapid economic recovery in the...

With public debt soaring across the world, a growing concern is whether current debt levels are a harbinger of fiscal crises, thereby restricting the policy space in a downturn. The empirical evidence to date is however inconclusive, and the true cost of debt may be overstated if interest rates...

Latin America’s bold fiscal policy reaction to the global financial crisis was hailed as a sign that the region had finally overcome its procyclical fiscal past. However, most countries of the region have not yet rebuilt their fiscal space, despite buoyant commodity revenues and relatively...