Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Latin America: An End to Boom and Bust? covers prospects in that region, which has managed to sustain a decade of prosperity after a history of boom and bust cycles. In our cover story, Nicolás Eyzaguirre, Director of the IMF's Western Hemisphere Department, says Latin America has the potential to become an increasingly important global player. But boosting productivity and competitiveness remain key policy challenges and the fruits of success must be more broadly shared. Other articles on our cover theme look at the prospects for Brazil, inequality in Latin America, and how to raise productivity. Turning from Latin America, we interview former IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus, former IMF MD and now head of a group of luminaries tasked with generating ideas on how to make the global monetary system more stable in the wake of the world financial crisis. This issue of F&D also features articles on financial market cycles, public investment in infrastructure, whether to worry about inflation or deflation, democracy and liberalization, how to manage health care spending, and rising food prices. People in Economics profiles growth guru Robert Solow, winner of the 1987 Nobel Prize in economics. Our regular Back to Basics feature explains financial services. Data Spotlight looks at how access to financial services is growing in developing countries; and Picture This highlights the IMF's new database of public debt since 1880.

Economic stabilization --- Economic development --- Adjustment, Economic --- Business stabilization --- Economic adjustment --- Stabilization, Economic --- Economic policy --- International cooperation --- Latin America --- Asociación Latinoamericana de Libre Comercio countries --- Neotropical region --- Neotropics --- New World tropics --- Spanish America --- Economic conditions --- E-books --- Inflation --- Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- Industries: Financial Services --- Production and Operations Management --- Price Level --- Deflation --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- Financial Institutions and Services: Government Policy and Regulation --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: Infrastructures --- Other Public Investment and Capital Stock --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Public finance & taxation --- Finance --- Monetary economics --- Banking --- Health care spending --- Financial services --- Public investment spending --- Expenditure --- Expenditures, Public --- Prices --- Financial services industry --- Public investments --- Business cycles --- Brazil

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The paper develops a simple, integrated methodology to project public pension cash flows and healthcare spending over the long term. We illustrate its features by applying it to the LAC5 (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico), where public spending pressures are expected to increase significantly over 2015-50 due to demographic trends and rising healthcare costs. We simulate alternative pension reforms, including the transition from a defined benefit to a defined contribution pension system and the fiscal burden of a minimum guaranteed pension under the latter. We also analyze public healthcare outlays in the LAC5, which is likewise expected to increase significantly over 2015-50 due to aging and the so-called excess cost growth factor of healthcare services, showing that curbing the evolution of the latter (e.g., through enhanced competition in the healthcare sector) could aid in containing spending pressures. Despite its simplicity, the methodology yields projections that compare well with other approaches. It therefore provides a good benchmark for assessing alternative reform scenarios, particularly in data-constrained countries.

Demographic anthropology. --- Anthropology --- Demography --- Labor --- Public Finance --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- Social Security and Public Pensions --- Forecasts of Budgets, Deficits, and Debt --- Economics of the Elderly --- Economics of the Handicapped --- Non-labor Market Discrimination --- Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits --- Private Pensions --- Retirement --- Retirement Policies --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Pensions --- Population & demography --- Labour --- income economics --- Public finance & taxation --- Pension spending --- Aging --- Expenditure --- Population and demographics --- Population aging --- Expenditures, Public --- Brazil --- Income economics

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Good practice suggests that budget allocations should reflect spending priorities and that spending should provide cost-effective delivery of public goods and services. This paper analyzes the composition of public expenditure in the Slovak Republic. It also assesses the relative efficiency of spending in education and health. The Slovak Republic spends more on social benefits and less on wages compared to the EU and OECD average. While it manages to translate the low expenditures into outcomes in an efficient manner in the education sector, this is not true for health. Moreover, the recent increases in expenditure levels have not improved outcomes, suggesting that significant budgetary savings could be achieved through increases in efficiency.

Political Science --- Law, Politics & Government --- Public Finance --- Government spending policy --- Slovakia --- Appropriations and expenditures. --- Expenditures, Public --- Public spending policy --- Spending policy, Government --- Government policy --- Slowakei --- République slovaque --- Slovaquie --- Slovak Republic (1993- ) --- Slovenská Republika (1993- ) --- Republika Słowacka --- RS --- Slovakii︠a︡ --- Slovat︠s︡kai︠a︡ Respublika --- Eslovàquia --- Economic policy --- Finance, Public --- Full employment policies --- Unfunded mandates --- Slovak Socialist Republic (Czechoslovakia) --- Slovak Republic (Czechoslovakia) --- Czechoslovakia --- Slovakia (Czechoslovakia) --- Slovensko --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- National Government Expenditures and Health --- Taxation and Subsidies: Externalities --- Redistributive Effects --- Environmental Taxes and Subsidies --- Social Security and Public Pensions --- Education: General --- National Government Expenditures and Education --- Public finance & taxation --- Education --- Expenditure --- Health care spending --- Total expenditures --- Education spending --- Slovak Republic

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Natural resource revenues provide a valuable source to finance public investment in developing countries, which frequently face borrowing constraints and tax revenue mobilization problems. This paper develops a dynamic stochastic small open economy model to analyze the macroeconomic effects of investing natural resource revenues, making explicit the role of pervasive features in these countries including public investment inefficiency, absorptive capacity constraints, Dutch disease, and financing needs to sustain capital. Revenue exhaustibility raises medium-term issues of how to sustain capital built during a windfall, while revenue volatility raises short-term concerns about macroeconomic instability. Using the model, country applications show how combining public investment with a resource fund---a sustainable investing approach---can help address the macroeconomic problems associated with both exhaustibility and volatility. The applications also demonstrate how the model can be used to determine the appropriate magnitude of the investment scaling-up (accounting for the financing needs to sustain capital) and the adequate size of a stabilization fund (buffer).

Business & Economics --- Economic History --- Public investments --- Natural resources --- Finance --- Econometric models. --- Government investments --- Investments, Public --- Expenditures, Public --- Investments --- Capital budget --- Economic development projects --- Investment of public funds --- Finance&delete& --- Econometric models --- E-books --- Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- Taxation --- Exhaustible Resources and Economic Development --- Investment --- Capital --- Intangible Capital --- Capacity --- Economic Growth of Open Economies --- One, Two, and Multisector Growth Models --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: Infrastructures --- Other Public Investment and Capital Stock --- Macroeconomics: Consumption --- Saving --- Wealth --- Business Taxes and Subsidies --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Public finance & taxation --- Public investment spending --- Consumption taxes --- Consumption --- Private consumption --- Expenditure --- Taxes --- National accounts --- Economics --- Spendings tax --- Angola

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

Two main themes of the book are that (1) politics can distort optimal fiscal policy through elections and through political fragmentation, and (2) rules and institutions can attenuate the negative effects of this dynamic. The book has three parts: part 1 (9 chapters) outlines the problems; part 2 (6 chapters) outlines how institutions and fiscal rules can offer solutions; and part 3 (4 chapters) discusses how multilevel governance frameworks can help.

E-books --- Fiscal policy --- Political science --- Economic aspects --- Fiscal policy. --- Tax policy --- Taxation --- Economic policy --- Finance, Public --- Economic aspects. --- Government policy --- Budgeting --- Foreign Exchange --- Macroeconomics --- Public Finance --- Fiscal Policy --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General --- Debt --- Debt Management --- Sovereign Debt --- Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue: General --- National Budget --- Budget Systems --- National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: Infrastructures --- Other Public Investment and Capital Stock --- Public finance & taxation --- Budgeting & financial management --- Currency --- Foreign exchange --- Labour --- income economics --- Expenditure --- Public debt --- Revenue administration --- Fiscal rules --- Expenditures, Public --- Debts, Public --- Revenue --- Budget --- United States --- Income economics