Russia entered the global crisis with strong fiscal position, low public debt, and large fiscal and monetary reserves, which helped it cushion the crisis shocks. But the rise in the non-oil fiscal deficit in 2007-08 and, more importantly, the massive impact of the global crisis in late 2008 and...

This case study of fiscal sustainability in Turkey after the crisis in 2001 reviews and extends quantitative approaches to fiscal sustainability analysis and brings them together in a user-friendly tool applicable in a data-sparse environment. It combines a dynamic simulations approach with a...

Fiscal sustainability analysis (FSA) is an important component of macroeconomic analysis for many developing countries. To further enhance understanding of fiscal policy and the constraints faced by policymakers, the authors develop a toolkit for FSA in middle-income countries which builds on...

Fiscal sustainability analysis (FSA) is an important component of macroeconomic analysis. The authors review various quantitative approaches to FSA with a major objective to bring these approaches together and to present a user-friendly tool for FSA that reflects modern developments. They...

Nigeria's oil boom has not brought an end to perennial stagnation in the non-oil economy. Is this the unavoidable consequence of the resource boom or have misguided policies contributed? This paper indicates that the extreme volatility of expenditure rather than Dutch Disease effects are behind...

This case study of fiscal sustainability in Turkey after the crisis in 2001 reviews and extends quantitative approaches to fiscal sustainability analysis and brings them together in a user-friendly tool applicable in a data-sparse environment. It combines a dynamic simulations approach with a...

The vast majority of international migrants from developing countries are of working age. And yet, their integration in the formal local labor market of their host countries continues to be a challenge. This paper reviews the scope of mentoring programs as a more systematic policy instrument to...

Regulators of concessions in newly privatized infrastructure sectors typically start the price control process with limited sectoral and corporate data. To move toward more realistic regulatory targets, they must ensure that this information base grows and that their ability to process it...

In 1989, the Argentine government initiated rapid privatization of infrastructure services-mainly gas, telecoms, electricity generation and transmission, and water and electricity distribution in the Buenos Aires metropolitan area. The author reviews the performance of the agencies set up to...

Brazil's electricity sector is made up of more than sixty-five, mostly vertically integrated, federally- and state-owned monopolies. The most pressing problems in the sector are excessive operational costs and large investment needs. Both of these problems can be addressed through more...