This paper examines the relationship between trade liberalization and the budget deficit, which depends on the specifics of country’s economic structure, and the trade regime which is being liberalized. It relates some popular but incomplete approaches to assessing this issue (such as analysis...

When a natural disaster destroys public capital, these direct losses are exacerbated by indirect losses arising from reduced output while reconstruction takes place. These indirect losses may be much larger, relative to the direct ones, in low-income countries, because they lack the finance for...

This paper focuses on the impact of disasters on public expenditures, and how this impact might be valued. The impact may involve changes in the composition of spending, concurrently and over time. It may also involve changes in the level of spending and the profile of this over time. In the...