India's growth performance has been impressive over the last two decades. But its sustainability has been in question, first with the 1991 fiscal-balance of payments crisis (BoP), and then again after 1997/98, when fiscal deficits returned to the 10 percent of GDP range and government debt grew....

The Russian Federation has one of the richest natural resource endowments in the world. Despite their importance in the Russian economy, natural resources do not contribute as much as they could to public revenues. Large resource rents (excess payments, or above-normal profits generated by...

Despite a dramatic shift away from subsidies in the early years of transition, the countries of Central Europe still show signs of unsuccessful fiscal adjustment, insufficient deficit reduction, and loose spending policy. High social transfers and low efficiency of government spending remain two...

The author discusses the risks of infrastructure projects and the costs of capital, rationales for government support of private infrastructure ventures, and approaches to managing government guarantees of private infrastructure investments. Among his recommendations: 1) the decision to grant a...

Fiscal adjustment is an illusion when it lowers the budget deficit or public debt but leaves the government's net worth unchanged, says the author. Conventional measures of the budget deficit largely measure the change in explicit public sector liabilities (debt). A more appropriate measure of...

Over the 1980s and 1990s, GDP growth had stagnated because of oil export price volatility and natural disasters, the sacrifice of capital formation to heavy external public debt service, and incomplete and uneven structural reform. The exchange rate depreciation that proved continually necessary...

Enthusiasts for financial sector tax reform typically come either with some form of"flat tax"(including value added tax on financial services, zero taxation on capital income, or a universal transactions tax) or advocating corrective taxes designed to offset market failures or achieve other...

The development of government bond markets and, in particular, their currency composition have recently received much interest, partly because of their relation with financial crises. The authors study the determinants of the size and currency composition of government bond markets for a panel...

The authors apply the dynamic macroeconomic framework developed by Agénor, Bayraktar, and El Aynaoui (2004) to Niger. As in the original model, linkages between foreign aid, public investment (disaggregated into education, infrastructure, and health), and growth are explicitly captured....

The author summarizes the major findings and recommendations in Averting the Old Age Crisis, describing problems in traditional pension systems and proposals for reform. Then she describes how those reforms are being implemented in many countries and examines empirical evidence about pension...