Hong Kong SAR''s government faces the dual challenges of volatile revenue and medium term spending pressures arising from a rapidly aging population. Age-related spending pressures raise long-run sustainability concerns, while revenue volatility creates risks to service provision, possibly...

Trinidad and Tobago is experiencing an energy boom stronger than the ones in 1970s and 1980s. The main fiscal policy challenge is to ensure that the increased revenues from the ultimately exhaustible resources are used in a way that protects the competitiveness of the nonenergy sector, builds...

This Selected Issues paper for the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe (STP) underlies the recent upward trend in inflation that was heavily influenced by external factors. The policy mix to achieve price stability requires effective control of money supply and fiscal restraint. As...

The Fund has long played a lead role in supporting developing countries' efforts to improve their revenue mobilization. This paper draws on that experience to review issues and good practice, and to assess prospects in this key area

The paper applies an empirical model, based on the economic theory of public choice, to the Group of Seven countries. It is discovered: (a) that deficit financing does appear to contribute to increased real government spending; (b) that the demand for government services as a whole does not...