Business and Economics > Budgeting

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International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This paper presents Republic of Kosovo’s First Reviews Under the Stand-By Arrangement (SBA) and the Arrangement under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility (RSF) and Request for Modification of Reform Measure. The authorities are making very good progress in implementing their policy agenda under the Fund-supported arrangements. The SBA continues to provide a key policy anchor, and the RSF continues to support Kosovo’s climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts including by catalyzing additional climate financing. Program ownership remains strong. All quantitative performance criteria and indicative targets have been met. Structural benchmarks under the SBA and reform measures under the RSF have been implemented. Actions required for subsequent reviews are progressing as expected or have been strengthened. The RSF is laying the foundations for greener and more efficient energy markets and supporting reforms in other areas. The RSF increased the policy space to strengthen the regulatory framework to attract private investment into renewable energy, improve energy market functioning, expand green electricity generation, reduce air pollution and emissions, strengthen energy security, improve the targeting of energy subsidies, and increase preparedness for the implementation of carbon pricing.
Iulia Ruxandra Teodoru
and
Ruud Vermeulen
To rebuild fiscal buffers after large fiscal responses to successive shocks over 2020-22, France will need to reverse the trend spending increase observed over the last three decades through structural spending reforms. This paper identifies areas where scope for savings or efficiency gains exist based on an evaluation of the level and efficiency of public spending in France relative to European peers, using benchmarking analysis and stochastic frontier analysis to derive efficiency frontiers. Reforming social protection, health, education, and civil service, and rationalizing tax expenditures should preserve or improve outcomes while generating savings that would help meet medium-term adjustment needs.
Moya Chin
Electoral rules determine how voters' preferences are aggregated and translated into political representation, and their design can lead to the election of representatives who represent broader or narrower constituencies. Relying on a regression discontinuity design, I contrast single- and two-round elections in Brazilian municipal races. Two-round elections use two rounds of voting to elect a winner, ensuring that the eventual winner obtains at least 50% of the vote. Theoretically, this can provide incentives for candidates to secure a broader base of support. Consistent with this, I show that in two-round elections, candidates represent a more geographically diverse group of voters, public schools have more resources, and there is less variation in resources across public schools. Effects appear to be driven by strategic responses of candidates, rather than differential entry into races. These results suggest that two-round elections can lead candidates to secure broader bases of support and to distribute public goods more broadly.
Lorenzo Forni
and
Andrea Bonfatti
The paper provides evidence that fiscal rules can limit the political budget cycle. It focuses on the application of the Italian fiscal rule at the sub-national level over the period 2004-2006 and shows that: 1) municipalities are subject to political budget cycles in capital spending; 2) the Italian subnational fiscal rule introduced in 1999 has been enforced by the central government; 3) municipalities subject to the fiscal rule show more limited political budget cycles than municipalities not subject to the rule. In order to identify the effect, we rely on the fact that the domestic fiscal rule does not apply to municipalities below 5,000 inhabitants. We find that the political budget cycle increases real capital spending by about 35 percent on average in the years prior to municipal elections and that the sub-national fiscal rule reduces these figures by about two thirds.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Joint Staff Advisory Note discusses progress in implementing Chad’s National Development Plan (NDP) in 2013. The NDP was overall satisfactorily implemented in 2013. By end 2013, about two-thirds of strategic indicators and one-half of intermediary indicators retained in the results framework did record progress in line with retained targets. In addition, the contribution of the 2013 national budget to the NDP implementation was close to initial plans, reflecting structural progress in terms of budget execution. The adoption of a robust Results Framework also allowed the authorities to effectively monitor NDP implementation, in terms of inputs, outputs, and outcomes.
Mr. Serhan Cevik
Using a novel municipality-level panel dataset, this paper investigates the empirical characteristics of vertical fiscal imbalances (VFIs) in Moldova over the period 2005–13. The results show that the extent of variation in VFIs across 898 municipalities can be explained by the level of per capita income, fiscal capacity, and demographic characteristics, as well as the central government’s fiscal behavior that reflects fiscal constraints and policy preferences at the national level. Political affiliation does not appear to be a significant factor, and the results are inconclusive in terms of direction. While some model specifications show larger VFIs when the mayor of a municipality belongs to the same party ruling the central government, other models suggest better coordination and thus lower VFIs. Altogether, these findings underscore the need for well-coordinated reforms to create economies of scale, enhance revenue collection, and improve the composition of spending at the subnational level.
International Monetary Fund
This paper focuses on the Medium-Term Development Program for the Kyrgyz Republic. The aim of this program is to put the economy of the country into a sustainable vector of development and improve the budget status to prevent social effects, increase living standard, and reduce poverty in the country. Implementation of the reforms anticipated by the Program will help to reduce the State budget deficit, enhance the fight against corruption, improve living standards, and decrease social tension in the society.
International Monetary Fund
In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.
International Monetary Fund
In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.
International Monetary Fund
This paper presents key findings of the assessment of progress made in the implementation of policies outlined in the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II, 2006–2009) for Ghana. The paper provides an assessment on programs such as the Multi Donor Budget Support, the linkage between the 2006 Annual Budget and the GPRS II, performance toward the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals, and the African Peer Review Mechanism. The paper also discusses macroeconomic performance and economic governance in Ghana.