In the 1970s, taxation of "windfall" profits from primary products and intervention in trade and production has tempted governments into expansionary fiscal policies while stifling the private sector and depressing growth. However, the experience of the recent coffee boom has so far been more...

This Selected Issues paper for the Solomon Islands reviews budget trends in the past decade and assesses medium-term budget prospects. Aid flows and revenue from import tariffs and logging are projected to decline. Spending pressures are likely to pick up considerably, owing to the need to...

This paper presents key findings of the Ex Post Assessment of Longer-Term Program Engagement for Bolivia. Bolivia is a country that is perceived as having one of the best structural reform records in Latin America but experienced sluggish per capita growth, and made virtually no progress in...

Uganda showed strong macroeconomic stability, low inflation, and poverty reduction under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF) Arrangement. Executive Directors commended the monetary and exchange rate policies, and stressed the need to strengthen fiscal sustainability and maintain a...

This paper continues the study of optimal fiscal policy in a growing economy by exploring a case in which the government simultaneously provides three main categories of expenditures with distortionary tax finance: public production services, public consumption services, and state-contingent...

German fiscal policy is nowadays often presented as a shining example due to successful budget consolidation after the Great Recession. However, the idea that the German success is the result of a well-thought-out economic strategy that could therefore serve as a role model for other countries...

One key element in the reduction of poverty and (in Latin America) inequality has been the achievement of greater fiscal equity; we analyse one key part of this process, which is the earmarking of portions of tax revenue to be spent on progressive public expenditures such as social protection,...

Public spending will play the decisive role in the reconstruction of Ukraine, in rendering aid to the population, providing emergency services, reconstructing infrastructure and driving industrial development in the coming years. For economic recovery and sustainable development in the post-war...