During the past decade, the formulation of fiscal policy has been increasingly founded on medium-term considerations associated with public debt and economic efficiency. In this regard, this paper, and the ones by Olivier Blanchard and Edward Gramlich in the same Working Paper Series, considers...

This paper describes the methodology used by the IMF staff to calculate the structural budget balance, estimates of which are published regularly in the IMF’s World Economic Outlook. The structural budget balance is the government’s actual fiscal position purged of the estimated budgetary...

An examination of the generational imbalance in current Italian fiscal policy, showing that unless dramatic steps are taken soon, future generations' net tax bill will be four or more times the amount that today's newborns are slated to pay.