The experience of developing countries over 1990-2010 indicates that commodity prices have a significant impact on fiscal outcomes. Both revenue and expenditure rise in response to commodity (import or export) price increases; the response of the fiscal deficit is ambiguous. A floating exchange...

The experience of developing countries over 1990-2010 indicates that commodity prices have a significant impact on fiscal outcomes. Both revenue and expenditure rise in response to commodity (import or export) price increases; the response of the fiscal deficit is ambiguous. A floating exchange...

Trade and financial ties between low-income countries (LICs) and Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRICs) have expanded rapidly in recent years. This gives rise to the potential for growth to spill over from the latter to the former. We employ a global vector autoregression (GVAR) model to...

This paper applies and extends a theoretical model built by Agénor and Montiel (2007) by exploring the effectiveness of government bonds and monetary policy in a small, open, credit-based economy with a fixed exchange rate. The model is applied to Benin, a member of a currency union, using a...

We examine determinants of, and interactions between, capital inflows, financial development, and domestic investment in developing countries during 2001-07, a period of surging global liquidity and low interest rates. Reductions in the global price of risk and in domestic borrowing costs were...

A new dataset on export sophistication reveals that in many countries the importance of modern services, and the sophistication of manufactured and service exports, has increased over time. However, this trend was less pronounced in LICs. Sophisticated sectors are more likely to act as a...

This paper assesses the implications of the use of oil revenue for public investment on growth and fiscal sustainability in Cameroon. We develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of such investment on growth and on the path of key fiscal indicators, such as...

The oil price decline creates an opportunity to dismantle energy subsidies, which escalated with high oil prices. This paper assesses energy subsidies in Latin America and the Caribbean—about 1.8 percent of GDP in 2011–13 (approximately evenly split between fuel and electricity),...

The past several years of recession and slow recovery have raised much interest on the effect of fiscal stimulus on economic activity, even as high public debts in many countries would call for fiscal consolidation. To evaluate the delicate balance between stimulus and consolidation requires...

Trade and financial ties between low-income countries (LICs) and Brazil, Russia, India, and China (BRICs) have expanded rapidly in recent years. This gives rise to the potential for growth to spill over from the latter to the former. We employ a global vector autoregression (GVAR) model to...