This 2008 Article IV Consultation highlights that over the last decade, Albania’s macroeconomic performance has generally been strong and per capita GDP in U.S. dollar terms more than doubled. Strong fiscal policy, largely based on major improvements in tax administration, lowered public debt...

The paper examines the direction of causality between total government expenditure and revenue in oil-dependent GCC countries by utilizing a cointegration and error-correction modeling framework, and by calculating a variance decomposition analysis. In addition, it presents impulse responses to...

The increased budget deficit caused by the privatization of a public pension plan does not imply a relaxation of the stance of fiscal policy. The reform''s impact on the fiscal stance and national saving depends primarily on its effect on the sum of explicit and implicit public debt and on the...

Based on country experiences, the paper assesses policy options to assign oil revenues to subnational governments (SNGs). The literature recommends that oil revenues be centralized. Given political economy considerations, this paper suggests that a possible alternative is to assign stable...

We analyse optimal discretionary games between a benevolent central bank and a myopic government in a New Keynesian model. First, when lump-sum taxes are available and public debt is absent, we show that a Nash game results in too much government spending and excessively high interest rates,...

We propose a fiscal rule that fulfills a specific debt reduction objective while maintaining significant fiscal flexibility-two overarching concerns in Israel. Not unlike the Swiss ""debt brake,"" the rule incorporates an error-correction mechanism (ECM) through which departure from the debt...

This paper examines the challenges and policy options after hyperinflation in Zimbabwe. The paper reviews the pros and cons of alternative monetary regimes for Zimbabwe to succeed the current multicurrency system, which the authorities consider a temporary arrangement. The analysis suggests that...

This paper presents a practical guide to public debt dynamics, fiscal sustainability, and cyclical adjustment of budgetary aggregates. The paper discusses fiscal formulas, which may be of practical use in fiscal analysis. The paper derives, respectively, the formulas for debt dynamics, and...

Oil-producing countries face challenges arising from the fact that oil revenue is exhaustible, volatile, and uncertain, and largely originates from abroad. Reflecting these challenges, the paper proposes some important general principles for the formulation and assessment of fiscal policy in...

This paper focuses on the macroeconomic aspects of fiscal management in aid-receiving countries. Despite the declining share of aid in budgets of donor countries, aid continues to play an important role in many developing countries. The paper first discusses the implications of aid in the...