As the world economy slowly recovers from the very deep and widespread recession of recent years, many countries confront very serious fiscal imbalances. How much time they have to deal with these imbalances is a central question, the salience of which can only have been increased by the ongoing...

The worst global downturn since the Great Depression has caused ballooning budget deficits in most nations, as tax revenues collapse and governments bail out financial institutions and attempt countercyclical fiscal policy. With notable exceptions, most economists accept the desirability of...

Widespread economic recessions and protracted financial crises have been documented as setting back gender equality and other development goals in the past. In the midst of the current global crisis - often referred to as “the Great Recession” - there is grave concern that progress made in...

Issues related to the use of the WTO instruments and mechanisms by CIS member states including the EAEU members remain one of the least studied problems regarding a comprehensive analysis not in Russia alone but also in other countries of the post-Soviet space. Activity in the WTO needs to be...

In mid-April, the Secretariat of the World Trade Organization published an annual analytical review – The Global Trade in 2013 and Forecasts for 2014. After a two-year recession, moderate growth in trade is expected in 2014 and 2015 – on development of the international trade. Also, the...

The worst global downturn since the Great Depression has caused ballooning budget deficits in most nations, as tax revenues collapse and governments bail out financial institutions and attempt countercyclical fiscal policy. With notable exceptions, most economists accept the desirability of...

This paper assesses the cyclicality and sustainability of fiscal policy in Belize and applies a stochastic simulation model to determine the optimal set of fiscal rules. The empirical analysis shows that fiscal policy in Belize has been significantly procyclical and unsustainable much of the...

We examine a large set of economic, sociopolitical, and institutional variables in a panel of 57 developed and developing countries over the period of 1970-90 to derive robust conclusions about which variables are important in explaining cross-country differences in public sector deficits....

We examine a large set of economic, sociopolitical, and institutional variables in a panel of 57 developed and developing countries over the period of 1970-90 to derive robust conclusions about which variables are important in explaining cross-country differences in public sector deficits....

The paper explores the extent to which the pressure of debt service on other spending items may push governments to embark on fiscal consolidation beyond what is strictly necessary to secure solvency. The empirical analysis identifies thresholds of interest bill indicators beyond which...