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.

This paper proposes a set of fiscal indicators to assess rollover risks using the conceptual framework developed by Cottarelli (2011). These indicators provide early warning signals about the manifestation of these risks, giving policymakers the opportunity to adjust policies before extreme fiscal stress events. Two aggregate indices are calculated: an index of fiscal vulnerability and an index of fiscal stress. Results show that both indices are elevated for advanced economies, reflecting unfavorable medium-term debt dynamics and aging-related spending pressures. In emerging economies, solvency risks are lower, but the composition of public debt remains a source of risk and the fiscal position is weaker than before the crisis.

Should policymakers wait for fiscal crisis early warning signals before repairing the roof? We give an answer to this question by investigating the interlinkages between early warning signals for fiscal crisis, policy responses, and policy outcomes, using a broad panel of 119 countries. We find that fiscal adjsutment is a good remedy for countries that act proactively, reducing their likelihood of facing fiscal crisis by up to about 60 percent. For those waiting for wake-up calls from early-detection tools, however, fiscal adjustment may not fully prevent fiscal crisis occurrence, with the chance of fiscal crisis prevention not only smaller (about 30 percent) but also statistically not significant. These findings highlight the prominence of repairing the roof when the sun is shining, particularly in countries with weak institutions.

In this paper I assess the ability of econometric and machine learning techniques to predict fiscal crises out of sample. I show that the econometric approaches used in many policy applications cannot outperform a simple heuristic rule of thumb. Machine learning techniques (elastic net, random forest, gradient boosted trees) deliver significant improvements in accuracy. Performance of machine learning techniques improves further, particularly for developing countries, when I expand the set of potential predictors and make use of algorithmic selection techniques instead of relying on a small set of variables deemed important by the literature. There is considerable agreement across learning algorithms in the set of selected predictors: Results confirm the importance of external sector stock and flow variables found in the literature but also point to demographics and the quality of governance as important predictors of fiscal crises. Fiscal variables appear to have less predictive value, and public debt matters only to the extent that it is owed to external creditors.

This paper presents a range of tools and indicators for analyzing fiscal vulnerabilities and risks for advanced economies. The analysis covers key short-, medium- and long-term dimensions. Short-term pressures are captured by assessing (i) gross funding needs, (ii) market perceptions of default risk, and (iii) stress dependence among sovereigns. Medium- and long-term pressures are summarized by (iv) medium- and long-term budgetary adjustment needs, (v) susceptibility of debt projections to growth and interest rate shocks, and (vi) stochastic risks to medium-term debt dynamics. Aiming to cover a wide range of advanced economies and minimize data lags, has also influenced the selection of empirical methods. Due to these features, they can, for example, help inform the joint IMF-FSB Early Warning Exercise (EWE) on the fiscal dimensions of economic risks.

Fiscal health of local governments and municipalities has remained an important issue since the crises of the 1970s in places like New York, Philadelphia and Cleveland. More recently, the bankruptcy of Orange County California raised the possibility of a different type of financial failure than earlier ones. The beginning of the 21st century has witnessed two major economic bubbles including the dotcom and housing bubbles. These economic cycles combined with increasing health care, pension and other structural costs continue to challenge the fiscal viability of many jurisdictions. In particular, the economic and financial crisis of 2007-2008 is likely to result in potentially serious fiscal challenges for local jurisdictions.

It is difficult to find someone who has not heard about the Puerto Rico, Detroit, Michigan, or Orange County, California, bankruptcies. While guides for responsibly managing government finances exist, problems often originate not because of poor financial reporting or financial deficiencies but because issues external to financial wellbeing arise, such as economic, demographic, political, legal, or even environmental factors. Exacerbating the problem, there is not much advice in the existing literature on how to act when municipalities face financial struggles. Filling this important gap, this book explores fiscal health and fiscal hardships, municipal defaults and bankruptcies, and many other aspects to help guide local governments during fiscal distress. Fiscal hardships negatively affect the quality and availability of public goods and services and, consequently, the wellbeing of residents and businesses living and working in distressed municipalities. Turned off streetlights, unmaintained public parks, potholes, inconsistent garbage pickup, longer response time from emergency services, and multiple other issues that residents of the struggling municipalities deal with, lead to higher crime rates, lower quality of K-12 education, dangerous road conditions, lower housing values, outmigration of wealthier population, and numerous other problems. The COVID-19 pandemic put additional unprecedented pressure on municipal finances nationwide. In this book authors Tatyana Guzman and Natalia Ermasova evaluate distressed cities and municipalities and provide practical recommendations on improving their financial conditions. What are conditions and signs to look for to not to find yourself in similar situations? What can be done if your municipality is already experiencing fiscal hardships? What are the consequences of fiscal misfortunes? How does one exit a fiscal emergency? This book answers these and other questions and serves as a guide to fiscal health and prosperity for U.S. municipal governments, students and researchers in public finance, and general public management fields.

A key objective of fiscal policy is to maintain the sustainability of public finances and avoid crises. Remarkably, there is very limited analysis on fiscal crises. This paper presents a new database of fiscal crises covering different country groups, including low-income developing countries (LIDCs) that have been mostly ignored in the past. Countries faced on average two crises since 1970, with the highest frequency in LIDCs and lowest in advanced economies. The data sheds some light on policies and economic dynamics around crises. LIDCs, which are usually seen as more vulnerable to shocks, appear to suffer the least in crisis periods. Surprisingly, advanced economies face greater turbulence (growth declines sharply in the first two years of the crisis), with half of them experiencing economic contractions. Fiscal policy is usually procyclical as countries curtail expenditure growth when economic activity weakens. We also find that the decline in economic growth is magnified if accompanied by a financial crisis.

This paper identifies leading indicators of fiscal crises based on a large sample of countries at different stages of development over 1970-2015. Our results are robust to different methodologies and sample periods. Previous literature on early warning sistems (EWS) for fiscal crises is scarce and based on small samples of advanced and emerging markets, raising doubts about the robustness of the results. Using a larger sample, our analysis shows that both nonfiscal (external and internal imbalances) and fiscal variables help predict crises among advanced and emerging economies. Our models performed well in out-of-sample forecasting and in predicting the most recent crises, a weakness of EWS in general. We also build EWS for low income countries, which had been overlooked in the literature.