Chapter 1 argues that fiscal policies are at the forefront of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fiscal measures can save lives, protect the most-affected people and firms from the economic impact of the pandemic, and prevent the health crisis from turning into a deep long-lasting slump. A key priority is to fully accommodate spending on health and emergency services. Global coordination is for a universally low-cost vaccine and to support countries with limited health capacity. Large, temporary and targeted support is urgently needed for affected workers and firms until the emergency abates. As the shutdowns end, broad-based, coordinated fiscal stimulus—where financing conditions permit—will become more effective in fostering the recovery. Chapter 2 argues that fiscal policies are at the forefront of facilitating an economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic once the Great Lockdown ends. Policymakers can achieve this objective with IDEAS: Invest for the future—in health systems, infrastructure, low carbon technologies, education, and research; adopt well-planned Discretionary policies that can be deployed quickly; and Enhance Automatic Stabilizers, which are built-in budgetary tax and spending measures that automatically stabilize incomes and consumption. Importantly, improving unemployment benefit systems and social safety nets can protect household incomes from adverse shocks and strengthen resilience against future epidemics. Over the past decade, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have doubled in importance among the world’s largest corporations. They often deliver basic services such as water, electricity, and loans for families and small businesses. At their best, they can help promote higher economic growth and achieve development goals. However, many are a burden to taxpayers and the economy. Chapter 3 discusses what governments can do to get the most out of SOEs. This includes ensuring the firm’s managers have the right incentives and there is effective oversight. It also requires a high degree of transparency of their activities.

The April 2021 edition of the Fiscal Monitor focuses on tailoring fiscal responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and adopting policies to reduce inequality and gaps

Chapter 1 discusses how fiscal policy operates amid a sharp rise in uncertainty caused by the war in Ukraine. Chapter 2 discusses how international coordination on tax matters can support revenue, inclusion, tax transparency, and greener economies.

Even as the global economic outlook is stabilizing, fiscal policy continues to struggle with legacies of high debt and deficits, while facing new challenges. Public finances risks are acute this year as over 80 economies and economic areas are holding elections, amid increased support for high government spending. Financing conditions remain challenging, while spending pressures to address structural challenges are becoming more pressing. Countries should boost long-term growth with a well-designed fiscal policy mix to promote innovation more broadly, including fundamental research, and facilitate technology diffusion. Durable fiscal consolidation efforts are needed to safeguard sustainable public finances and rebuild buffers.

The report explores how fiscal policy can foster resilience by protecting households against large income and employment losses. Governments face increasingly difficult trade-offs in tackling the spikes in food and energy prices when policy buffers are largely exhausted after two years of pandemic. They should prioritize protecting vulnerable groups through targeted support while keeping a tight fiscal stance to help reduce inflation. Building fiscal buffers in normal times would allow governments to respond swiftly and flexibly during adversities. Several fiscal tools, such as job-retention schemes, have proven useful to preserve jobs and income for workers. Social safety nets should be made more readily scalable and better targeted, leveraging digital technologies. Exceptional support to firms should be reserved for severe situations and requires sound fiscal risk management.

Social and physical distancing and restrictions on international travel (thereafter “social and movement measures”) have been introduced to reduce the risk of acquiring or spreading infection with COVID-19 in various community settings. Whilst the risk of infection to COVID-19 decreases, social and movement measures exacerbate the economic slowdown and can worsen socioeconomic inequalities. Calibrating social and movement measures is complex as it has direct and indirect health and economic impacts, across different subpopulations, now and in the future, and is characterized by uncertainty, urgency, need for multiple levels of decision-making. In this type of context, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy. But inclusive decision making, systematically informed by data and communicated clearly will promote transparency in the process, increase the legitimacy of the decisions and promote trust between the population and the decision-makers. The World Health Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development describe, in their joint publication, a decision framework to assist countries as they continue to calibrate social and movement measures until there is widespread population coverage with the vaccine.

This book examines anti-corruption policies in Latin America. It compares best practices in public procurement and state budgets in order to provide new insights into policy design for governments, civil society organisations and international organisations engaged in the fight against corruption. The book assesses how a paradigm shift toward transparency in global governance has led to major changes in public policies in the region since the late 1990s. Using Uruguay and Chile as case studies, it then demonstrates the causal mechanisms linking transparency institutionalisation to corruption control. The book also offers recommendations for research and practice about the importance of coherent public accountability systems, that combine citizen oversight over government with government responsibility towards non-state actors. It will appeal to scholars and students of public policy, public administration and governance in Latin America, as well as those interested in political corruption.

Providing a broad overview of the impact of COVID-19 on economic development, this timely book examines closely the macroeconomic aspects of economic development and the design of monetary policies under extreme crises.

The global financial system is the worldwide framework of legal agreements, institutions, and both formal and informal economic actors that together facilitate international flows of financial capital for purposes of investment and trade financing. Since emerging in the late 19th century during the first modern wave of economic globalization, its evolution is marked by the establishment of central banks, multilateral treaties, and intergovernmental organizations aimed at improving the transparency, regulation, and effectiveness of international markets. In the late 1800s, world migration and communication technology facilitated unprecedented growth in international trade and investment. At the onset of World War, I, trade contracted as foreign exchange markets became paralyzed by money market illiquidity. Countries sought to defend against external shocks with protectionist policies and trade virtually halted by 1933, worsening the effects of the global Great Depression until a series of reciprocal trade agreements slowly reduced tariffs worldwide. Efforts to revamp the international monetary system after World War II improved exchange rate stability, fostering record growth in global finance.

The Economic Outlook for Southeast Asia, China and India is a bi-annual publication on regional economic growth, development and regional integration in Emerging Asia. The update of the Outlook comprises three main parts, each highlighting a particular dimension of recent economic developments in the region.