This paper addresses concerns that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with the exception of the GCC economies, has lagged behind in trade liberalization. This delay has adversely affected production efficiency and consumer welfare and could reduce the region’s ability to attract...

Global imbalances have been a central theme of the international economic policy debate for much of the last decade, prompted by large and sustained current account deficits in the U.S. and counterpart surpluses in China, Germany, and among many of the oil producers. This paper focuses on the...

Since the mid-1980s, the securitization of future flow receivables has grown in importance as a financing alternative for the public sector. In a world of perfect capital markets, there appears to be little rationale-in terms of reducing the average cost of public sector financing-to resort to...

The main purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of approaches to assessing fiscal sustainability. It summarizes the general analytical background, focusing on the present value budget constraint, which is the benchmark against which solvency is determined, tests of sustainability...

Structural indicators of a country's fiscal position are regularly used as estimates of both discretionary changes in fiscal policy and the effect of fiscal policy on aggregate demand. This paper looks at such indicators and evaluates, from a theoretical standpoint and from empirical case...

This paper assesses sustainable fiscal behavior in an economy where wealth is derived predominantly from a non-renewable resource. It explores the issue in a simple dynamic framework that highlights the structural weaknesses in the underlying budgetary position, takes into account the rate of...

The Philippines is faced with a policy dilemma in the area of corporate taxation. On the one hand, the country has, over the past few years, witnessed a decline in revenue as a share of output. On the other, it is operating in an increasingly competitive regional market for foreign direct...

An improvement in the quality of public expenditures is needed in many countries, given binding macroeconomic and fiscal constraints, and poverty reduction and distributional objectives. This process involves a reassessment of methodology used for this purpose by countries and international...