Highly favorable external conditions have helped Latin America strengthen its economic fundamentals over the last decade. But, has the region built enough buffers to guard itself from a weakening of the external environment? This paper addresses this question by developing a simple framework...

This 2013 Article IV Consultation highlights that Norwegian economy has been performing well, with mainland GDP growing steadily. However, the continuing buildup of assets in the sovereign wealth fund and the increasing share of the mainland economy that is supplying goods and services to the...

This report discusses Angola’s sixth review under the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) and request for waivers of nonobservance of performance criteria. Three years after the abrupt decline in world oil prices that severely impacted its economy, Angola has reached a sharply improved fiscal...

The fiscal crisis in the Kingdom of Swaziland emanating from a decline in revenue from the Southern African Customs Union and one of the largest public wage bills in sub-Saharan Africa has reached a critical stage. Faced with revenue shortfalls associated with slowing economic activity,...

The Mozambican economy recorded a strong performance in 2011, showing little sign of being affected by the global turmoil. Given the declining trend in foreign aid in the medium term, the government is tapping more into nonconcessional borrowing to close the infrastructure gap. To promote...

This paper reviews the development of the quality of the main fiscal data released through the Excessive Deficit Pr ocedures (EDP) since the euro's introduction. As such, this paper presents the outcome of various econometric tests based on all the vintages of the annual main fiscal data...

This paper reviews the development of the quality of the main fiscal data released through the Excessive Deficit Pr ocedures (EDP) since the euro's introduction. As such, this paper presents the outcome of various econometric tests based on all the vintages of the annual main fiscal data...