This Public Expenditure Review analyzes trends in revenues, expenditures and development outcomes over the past 10 years. Its main findings are that, since the late 1990s, the Philippines has been caught in a low-revenue, low-expenditure trap and that the current level of public revenues is not...

Since 1987, Ireland has developed five "social partnership" agreements, with the latest launched in February 2000 called the "Program for Prosperity and Fairness"1. This program outlines a comprehensive set of economic and social objectives finalized over extensive consultations among the...

This report brings together three budget notes that assess Kenya's fiscal capacity to respond to global crisis and deliver shared growth without compromising macroeconomic stability. The report is organized into three notes. The key messages from this analysis point to areas where Kenya's fiscal...

Although the State of Ceara, in Brazil, is a model of good economic, and fiscal performance given its poverty status, recent analysis show poverty remains severe, in spite of significant reductions over the last decade. The combination of good governance, and sound fiscal management, industrial...

"Political economy explanations for fiscal profligacy are dominated by models of bargaining among organized interest groups over group-specific targeted benefits financed by generalized taxation. These models predict that governments consisting of a coalition of political parties spend more than...

"A resurgence of recent interest in fiscal federalism has been a source of concern among macroeconomic stabilization experts. They argue that a decentralized fiscal system poses a threat to macroeconomic stability as it is incompatible with prudent monetary and fiscal management. The author...