This paper discusses Uganda’s Sixth Review Under the Three-Year Arrangement Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF), Request for Waiver of Performance Criteria, and Request for a Policy Support Instrument (PSI). Performance relative to the sixth and final PRGF review was...

There is much evidence against the so-called "too big to fail" hypothesis in the case of bailouts to sub-national governments. We look at a model where districts of different size provide local public goods with positive spillovers. Matching grants of a central government can induce...

With increasing frequency, the IMF has assisted middle-income countries, especially emerging economies, in adopting the types of budget reforms that have been introduced in many Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries - reforms that emphasize performance and...

While models based on Friedman's (1957) permanent-income hypothesis can provide oilproducing countries with long-run fiscal targets, they usually abstract from short-run costs associated with consolidation. This paper proposes a model that takes such adjustment costs (or "habits") into account....

Revenue authorities (RAs) have been adopted by some countries as an alternative delivery model for improved revenue administration. They are sometimes seen as a possible solution to problems such as low rates of tax compliance, ineffective tax administration staff, and corruption. The paper...

There is much evidence against the so-called "too big to fail" hypothesis in the case of bailouts to sub-national governments. We look at a model where districts of different size provide local public goods with positive spillovers. Matching grants of a central government can induce...

This Selected Issues paper investigates the factors behind the deterioration in Italy’s international competitiveness. It concludes that the loss of competitiveness accumulated by Italian firms in recent years is mainly a consequence of weak long-term productivity performance. The paper...

This paper continues the study of optimal fiscal policy in a growing economy by exploring a case in which the government simultaneously provides three main categories of expenditures with distortionary tax finance: public production services, public consumption services, and state-contingent...

This paper analyzes the pervasiveness and persistence of rent seeking, misgovernance, and public sector inefficiency in many developing and transition economies. We formalize evidence from country experiences and empirical studies into a stylized analytical framework that reflects realistic...

This paper analyzes the relationship between fiscal adjustment and real GDP growth in a panel of 26 transition economies during 1992-2001. Unlike most previous studies using cross-country regressions, the paper finds a positive and statistically significant relationship between fiscal adjustment...