Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa is struggling to navigate an unprecedented health and economic crisis—one that, in just a few months, has jeopardized decades of hard-won development gains and upended the lives and livelihoods of millions.
Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa is struggling to navigate an unprecedented health and economic crisis—one that, in just a few months, has jeopardized decades of hard-won development gains and upended the lives and livelihoods of millions.
Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa is struggling to navigate an unprecedented health and economic crisis—one that, in just a few months, has jeopardized decades of hard-won development gains and upended the lives and livelihoods of millions.
Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa is struggling to navigate an unprecedented health and economic crisis—one that, in just a few months, has jeopardized decades of hard-won development gains and upended the lives and livelihoods of millions.
This paper assesses Uganda’s Request for a Three-Year Arrangement Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility (PRGF). The program for 2002/03–2004/05, which could be supported by a new PRGF arrangement, aims to increase real GDP growth to about 6½ percent a year on average, while holding annual inflation at about 3½ percent. Monetary and exchange rate policies will focus on maintaining stability in light of sizable sterilization operations. The authorities will rely on market-based monetary instruments and will adhere to a flexible exchange rate policy.
Abstract
Central banks and other public financial institutions act as agents of fiscal policy in many countries. Their "quasi-fiscal" operations and activities can affect the overall public sector balance without affecting the budget deficit as conventionally measured, may also have important allocative effects, and increase the effective size of the public sector. This paper analyzes the macroeconomic and financial effects of such quasi-fiscal activities, as well as the taxes, subsidies, and other expenditures that such activities introduce outside the budget. Measurement and accounting issues are addressed, and policy recommendations are offered.
Abstract
Sub-Saharan Africa is contending with an unprecedented health and economic crisis—one that, in just a few months, has jeopardized years of hard-won development gains and upended the lives and livelihoods of millions.
Abstract
Central banks and other public financial institutions (PFIs) play an important role as agents of fiscal policy in many IMF member countries. Their activities in this guise can affect the overall public sector balance (the balance of both the nonfinancial and the financial public sectors), without affecting the budget deficit as conventionally measured. These activities, which are often referred to as quasi-fiscal operations or activities (QFAs), may also have important allocative effects.1 Moreover, they entail an increase in the effective role and size of the public sector.
Abstract
In many countries, some of the activities in which central banks and PFIs engage, as well as some of the regulatory requirements of central banks, can be said to take on a fiscal character. These quasi-fiscal actions could, in principle, be duplicated by specific budgetary measures in the form of an explicit tax, subsidy, or other direct expenditure.6 Such activities, operations, and regulations are often used by governments to carry out specific budgetary or fiscal objectives outside the budget, and often in ways that are not transparent. Table 1 gives a sense of the range of QFAs in which central banks and other PFIs engage.