A strong legal framework that forms the basis for the activities of debt managers is crucial for enabling an effective public debt management function. This paper aims to complement discussions on the legal foundations of debt management by detecting and discussing essential elements that allow...

Over the past decade, a large number of low- and lower-middle income ‘frontier economies’ have begun to access international private capital markets to meet fiscal financing needs. In this paper we seek to identify drivers of this trend, identify associated risks, and present policy...

A large and growing literature has argued that industrialized and developing countries behave very differently in relation to their fiscal policy stances over the business cycle. In this paper, the authors provide new evidence on the cyclicality of fiscal policy across industrialized and...

Since the global financial crisis and the end of the commodity super-cycle, weak growth and countercyclical fiscal policy have contributed to deteriorating public finances in many countries across the globe. As public debt burdens rose, credit ratings deteriorated and a number of countries have...

Linkages between the real and financial sectors in an economy can lead to a buildup of balance sheet mismatches of key entities—corporates, financial institutions, households, and the public sector. Once such imbalances have built up, they can make the economy vulnerable to macroeconomic...

The World Bank Group has come a long way in supporting structural reforms in its member countries. The most remarkable feature of its long 35 years and continuing journey has been its ability to listen, learn and adjust over time. It learnt relatively quickly that reform ownership is a necessary...

The authors build on the findings from an earlier analysis, adding to the evidence base for the notion that credit rating agencies contribute to fiscal sustainability. To do so, the authors focus on election periods when political pressures for fiscal expansions are heightened. The literature on...