Projections of age-related public expenditure growth have raised widespread concerns about fiscal sustainability. This paper examines how total expenditure would develop under four policy rules on public expenditure growth. Some simple arithmetic of expenditure, GDP, and population is reviewed...

We examine the effects of public sector borrowing from the domestic banking system on financial development in middle-income countries. While these countries'' external debt has been falling, the share of bank credit absorbed by the public sector has been rising rapidly. We argue that this runs...

In recent years financial globalization and benign global market conditions have helped emerging markets in their external financing and budgetary positions. This paper examines three related issues: (i) the importance of the impact of the benign financial environment on fiscal performance; (ii)...