The finances of the Czech pension system have deteriorated markedly in recent years and the aging population will add further strains in the future. The system is also burdened by significant distortions and disincentive effects. This paper assesses the current pay-as-you-go (PAYG) system,...

Aging may be one of the most far-reaching processes defining the economic, fiscal, and social changes societies are likely to experience over the next 40 years. The demographic consequences of aging will have a dramatic impact on labor markets, economic growth, social structures--and government...

Following the collapse of commodity prices in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in 2014-15, many countries in the region were unable to cushion the impact of the shock in order to experience a more gradual adjustment, to a large extent because they had not built adequate fiscal buffers...

Following the collapse of commodity prices in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) in 2014-15, many countries in the region were unable to cushion the impact of the shock in order to experience a more gradual adjustment, to a large extent because they had not built adequate fiscal buffers...

Front Cover -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgments -- About the Authors -- Abbreviations -- Overview -- Setting the Scene -- Fiscal Rules and Economic Size -- Small Countries: Structural Features, Business Cycles, and Recent Economic Performance -- A Snapshot of Fiscal Rules -- Fiscal Rules...

This paper uses the method of measuring tax capacity and tax effort to analyze how well ECA countries are utilizing their tax capacities, relative to the average performance across countries. Among the variables that have been identified to be determinants of tax shares are: (i) tax evasion, and...