This paper examines the fiscal and monetary policy options available to China as a sovereign currency-issuing nation operating in a dollar standard world. We first summarize a number of issues facing China, including the possibility of slower growth, global imbalances, and a number of domestic...

Austerity is a concept that is often used in the public debate. It refers to fiscal policy measures that reduce government spending and raise taxes for the purposes of closing a government budget deficit. This paper analyzes the concept in the context of the current European economic crisis and...

Emerging market and developing economies have experienced recurrent episodes of rapid debt accumulation over the past fifty years. This paper examines the consequences of debt accumulation using a three-pronged approach: an event study of debt accumulation episodes in 100 emerging market and...

Emerging market and developing economies have experienced recurrent episodes of rapid debt accumulation over the past fifty years. This paper examines the consequences of debt accumulation using a three-pronged approach: an event study of debt accumulation episodes in 100 emerging market and...

The paper investigates effects of fiscal decentralization on non-oil sector development in case of Azerbaijan for the quarterly period of 2002 through 2013. Results obtained from Auto-regressive Distributed Lag Bounds Testing approach show that share of local expenditures and revenues in total,...

The OPEC countries rely on oil to fund their budgets, similar to many countries worldwide. However, the fall in oil prices in 2008 and 2014 put significant strain on their public finances, including healthcare finances. This study examines the effect of the fall in oil prices on OPEC countries'...

Crude oil is one of the sources by which budgets are financed in OPEC countries. However, the fall in oil prices in 2014 put their governments' finances under significant pressure. Healthcare was one of the sectors experiencing fiscal strain. This study examined the effect of a fall in oil...

The OPEC governments mainly financed their budgets by relying on oil production, similar to many other governments globally. However, the world’s ongoing economic development, changes in countries’ political relationships, and exchange of sanctions could have adverse consequences for...

Most party systems have seen a considerable rise in polarization during the past decades. We show that fiscal policies have contributed to this development. Our macro-level analysis of 166 elections since 1980 finds that austerity increases both electoral abstention and votes for non-mainstream...

This paper examines the fiscal and monetary policy options available to China as a sovereign currency-issuing nation operating in a dollar standard world. We first summarize a number of issues facing China, including the possibility of slower growth, global imbalances, and a number of domestic...