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Social Spending and Outcomes in Madagascar
The paper examines Madagascar's education, health, and social assistance spending and outcomes. Government spending on education is relatively low compared to peers, and the quality of education has deteriorated. The paper recommends allocating more resources to the sector, ensuring transparent and merit-based teacher recruitment mechanisms, and strengthening teacher training and incentives. Health spending is also low, and the health system faces challenges in malnutrition, immunization, and service delivery. Additional domestic resources and large-scale structural reforms are needed. Social safety net programs have limited coverage and low spending, and expanding them should be a top priority to reduce poverty and support vulnerable populations.
How to Control the Fiscal Costs of Public-Private Partnerships
This note discusses what finance ministries can do to ensure that public-private partnerships (PPPs) are used wisely. By inviting private participation in infrastructure development and service provision, PPPs can help improve public services. Yet, strong governance institutions are needed to manage risks and avoid unexpected costs from PPPs. While in the short term, PPPs may appear cheaper than traditional public investment, over time they can turn out to be more expensive and undermine fiscal sustainability, particularly when governments ignore or are unaware of their deferred costs and associated fiscal risks. To use PPPs wisely governments should (1) develop and implement clear rules for their use; (2) identify, quantify, and disclose PPP risks and expected costs; and (3) reform budget and government accounting frameworks to capture all fiscal costs comprehensively.
Morocco
Morocco has made substantial progress in increasing inclusive growth over the past decade, but additional efforts in terms of growth-enhancing structural reforms are needed. Preserving economic efficiency and fostering growth while strengthening inclusiveness remains a priority. This paper describes the fuel subsidy system in Morocco, introduces an organizing framework to illustrate the trade-offs involved in meeting various economic and social objectives when considering subsidy reform, and highlights some lessons from the international experience in implementing subsidy reforms that may be pertinent to the case of Morocco.
Subsidy Reform in the Middle East and North Africa
In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries price subsidies are common, especially on food and fuels. However, these are neither well targeted nor cost effective as a social protection tool, often benefiting mainly the better off instead of the poor and vulnerable. This paper explores the challenges of replacing generalized price subsidies with more equitable social safety net instruments, including the short-term inflationary effects, and describes the features of successful subsidy reforms.
Assessing Fiscal Stress
This paper develops a new index which provides early warning signals of fiscal sustainability problems for advanced and emerging economies. Unlike previous studies, the index assesses the determinants of fiscal stress periods, covering public debt default as well as near-default events. The fiscal stress index depends on a parsimonious set of fiscal indicators, aggregated using the approach proposed by Kaminsky, Lizondo and Reinhart (1998). The index is used to assess the build up of fiscal stress over time since the mid-1990s in advanced and emering economies. Fiscal stress has increased recently to record-high levels in advanced countries, reflecting raising solvency risks and financing needs. In emerging economies, risks are lower than in mature economies owing to sounder fiscal fundamentals, but fiscal stress remains higher than before the crisis.
Regional Economic Outlook, May 2013, Sub-Saharan Africa
Growth remained strong in the region in 2012, with regional GDP rates increasing in most countries (excluding Nigeria and South Africa). Projections point to a moderate, broad-based acceleration in growth to around 51⁄2 percent in 2013¬14, reflecting a gradually strengthening global economy and robust domestic demand. Investment in export-oriented sectors remains an important economic driver, and an agriculture rebound in drought-affected areas will also help growth. Uncertainties in the global economy are the main risk to the region’s outlook, but plausible adverse shocks would likely not have a large effect on the region’s overall performance.
Cameroon
This paper presents key discussions of Cameroon’s 2013 Article IV Consultation. Economic activity in Cameroon has continued to recover gradually from the global financial crisis in 2008–2009, and inflation has remained subdued. In light of growing vulnerabilities, the report suggests to adopt a plan to reduce fuel subsidies gradually, accompanied by targeted social programs for the neediest, to free up resources for public investment. It is also necessary to accelerate resolution of distressed banks and enhance the regulatory framework to promote lending.
Fiscal Monitor, April 2014
Fiscal risks are abating somewhat but remain elevated. In advanced economies, recent policy moves have broadly stabilized public debt ratios, but medium-term prospects are still uncertain, and debt remains at historic highs. Fiscal vulnerabilities are rising in both emerging market economies and low-income countries, although in most cases from relatively moderate levels. Across country groups, fiscal policy should aim at rebuilding policy space while supporting the recovery and long-term growth prospects.
Fiscal Monitor, October 2013
Persistently high debt ratios in advanced economies and emerging fragilities in the developing world cast clouds on the global fiscal landscape. In advanced economies, with narrowing budget deficits, the average public debt ratio is expected to stabilize in 2013–14—but it will be at a historic peak. At the same time, fiscal vulnerabilities are on the rise in emerging market economies and low-income countries—on the back, in emerging market economies, of heightened financial volatility and downward revisions to potential growth, and in low-income countries, of possible shortfalls in commodity prices and aid. Strengthening fiscal balances and buttressing confidence thus remain at the top...
Confronting Inequality
Inequality has drastically increased in many countries around the globe over the past three decades. The widening gap between the very rich and everyone else is often portrayed as an unexpected outcome or as the tradeoff we must accept to achieve economic growth. In this book, three International Monetary Fund economists show that this increase in inequality has in fact been a political choice—and explain what policies we should choose instead to achieve a more inclusive economy. Jonathan D. Ostry, Prakash Loungani, and Andrew Berg demonstrate that the extent of inequality depends on the policies governments choose—such as whether to let capital move unhindered across national boundaries...
