Opportunities for Fiscal Policy Making in the Digital Era

Posted by Florian Misch, Brian Olden and Marcos Poplawski-Ribeiro[1]

Digital Revolutions in Public Finance…

A conference on “Digital Revolutions in Public Finance”, jointly hosted by the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was the centerpiece of the IMF’s Fiscal Forum during the April 2017 IMF/World Bank Spring Meetings. The event featured presentations by academics, government officials, IMF staff, and private sector representatives that discussed the significant impact of technological advances in the digital sphere on fiscal policy formulation and implementation. There was general agreement that the future impact of digitization is likely to be even more profound, disruptive, and faster than we could have imagined, given the current pace and breadth of technological changes.

SOAS Summer School in Public Financial Management

 

Posted by Dr. Alberto Asquer[1]

What are the implications of Brexit on the management of public finances? Why have taxes been introduced in countries of the Persian Gulf? How can developing countries fund infrastructure development? How can we know if spending of public monies results in value-for-money services? These and many other questions are of pivotal importance in the discourse on public financial management nowadays.

For the second year in a row, the SOAS Summer School in Public Financial Management will provide participants with the theoretical knowledge and tools for reviewing, discussing, understanding and evaluating key themes about public financial management. Based on academic research and practical examples, students will learn how the governments and public sector organisations plan and administer public spending; how tax policies are made; what are the effects of taxation; what other means, apart from taxation, the public sector has for raising revenues; how financial performance is reported to the public; and how fiscal balance is attained. In tutorials, students will be required to present assigned tasks and discuss case studies of public financial management drawing from a variety of countries from all over the world.

Every Woman Counts: Gender Budgeting in G7 Countries

By PFM Blog Administrator    

Dear PFM Blog Readers,

Check out this blog post on Gender Budgeting by IMF Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, on the IMF's main blog site, IMFBlog. You may also be interested in the Board Paper, prepared by the IMF at the request of the Italian Presidency of the G7, on Gender Budgeting Issues in the G7, cited in that blog post. Many frequent PFM blog writers in the Fiscal Affairs Department contributed to the paper.

Enjoy!

Practical Ideas for Challenging Environments – ‘PFM Introductory Guides’

Posted by Bryn Welham, Sierd Hadley, and Mark Miller[1]

Cliquez  ici pour lire en français

The Overseas Development Institute (ODI), with funding from Sida, have recently published a series of ‘PFM Introductory Guides’ aimed at helping government officials, and their supporters, who work in low-capability environments. These documents (available in English and French) provide a summary of the key issues and some modest options for reform specifically aimed at challenging contexts. The Guides cover: (i) fiscal decentralisation; (ii) cash management; (iii) capital investment management; (iv) the strategic phase of the budget; and (v) the finance ministry challenge function. They are based on a review of the wide-ranging literature on these topics, supplemented by the first-hand experience of ODI and Budget Strengthening Initiative (BSI) staff who work on these issues.

Brazil Publishes an Enhanced Fiscal Risk Statement

Posted by Daniel Borges[1] and Luis Felipe Vital N Pereira[2]

Since 2002 the Brazilian government has published an annual fiscal risk statement (FRS), making Brazil one of the pioneers in transparency of fiscal risks. This statement is published as an annex to the proposed Budget Guidelines Law, which is submitted by the Executive branch to Congress in April each year. The Brazilian Fiscal Responsibility Law (Complementary Law No 101, 2000), requires the publication of a FRS which provides an assessment of contingent liabilities and general risks that could influence the current budget.

During the FRS’s first decade, Brazil experienced strong economic growth, supported by stable and favorable domestic and international conditions including high commodity prices, controlled inflation and the strong commitment of federal and local governments to delivering primary surpluses. Under these circumstances, the FRS received very limited attention and was considered a bureaucratic document to fulfill a legal obligation.

Managing Budgetary Pressures

Posted by Neil Cole and Alta Folscher[1]

Budget managers are frequently confronted with changing circumstances during the fiscal year that disrupt even the best prepared budgets. Some routine pressures require no more than regular adjustments to plans, while others become chronic and have a great impact on public finances. Then there are extraordinary shocks, which can be sudden and significantly threaten budget stability and service delivery. The 2017 CABRI Conference, held in Burkina Faso in March and attended by 69 officials from 26 African countries, examined how governments can better prepare for and manage such budgetary pressures without disrupting service delivery and incurring unsustainable debt.