Credit rating agencies have drawn criticism for failing to anticipate and deter root causes of the 2008-2009 financial crisis in the United States. However, this paper presents evidence that credit rating agencies regularly anticipate and deter governments in emerging democracies from...

The authors build on the findings from an earlier analysis, adding to the evidence base for the notion that credit rating agencies contribute to fiscal sustainability. To do so, the authors focus on election periods when political pressures for fiscal expansions are heightened. The literature on...

Recent research has focused on the role of the political and institutional context for the occurrence of political budget cycles, i.e. fluctuations in the budget balance when elections loom. This study turns to the economic factors. A formal model predicts that higher economic volatility...

Fiscal buffers have shrunk across the world. This paper argues that limited fiscal room in emerging market economies today is partly due to the commodity super cycle of 2000-15. The super cycle created the mirage that economic performance had structurally improved, mistaking a long,...

Credit rating agencies have drawn criticism for failing to anticipate and deter root causes of the 2008-2009 financial crisis in the United States. However, this paper presents evidence that credit rating agencies regularly anticipate and deter governments in emerging democracies from...

The literature on political budget cycles, i.e. fluctuations in the budget balance during elections, largely assumes governments to be unitary actors. However, in many political systems, political parties share governing responsibility in a coalition. This article examines the intra-coalition...