Fiscal risks are abating somewhat but remain elevated. In advanced economies, recent policy moves have broadly stabilized public debt ratios, but medium-term prospects are still uncertain, and debt remains at historic highs. Fiscal vulnerabilities are rising in both emerging market economies and...

For many decades, trade policy in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) had involved very high levels of protection and of government intervention. The active pursuit of import substitution policies reduced the openness and efficiency of the regions economies. It also increased their external...

This paper documents the spread of fiscal rules in the developing world and investigates the relation between fiscal rules and procyclical fiscal policy. We find that, since the early 2000s, developing countries outnumbered advanced economies as users of fiscal rules. Rules were adopted either...