This paper explores how fiscal policy can affect medium- to long-term growth. It identifies the main channels through which fiscal policy can influence growth and distills practical lessons for policymakers. The particular mix of policy measures, however, will depend on country-specific conditions, capacities, and preferences. The paper draws on the Fund’s extensive technical assistance on fiscal reforms as well as several analytical studies, including a novel approach for country studies, a statistical analysis of growth accelerations following fiscal reforms, and simulations of an endogenous growth model.

This paper discusses in a systematic and comprehensive way the existing literature on the relationship between the growth of countries’ economies and various public finance instruments, such as tax policy, expenditure policy, and overall budgetary policy, from the perspectives of allocative efficiency, macroeconomic stability, and income distribution. It reviews both the conceptual linkages between each of the instruments and growth and the empirical evidence on such relationships. It broadly concludes that fiscal policy could play a fundamental role in affecting the long-run growth performance of countries.

We estimate the effects on growth of nine fiscal reform episodes in seven high-income countries using the Synthetic Control Method. These episodes are selected using an indicator-based approach applied to the evaluation of growth-friendly fiscal reforms during 1975-2010. We find that in reform countries the annual growth rate of real GDP was on average about 1 percentage point above their synthetic units 10 years after each respective reform. Moreover, countries which were initially less developed seemed to experience a larger growth impact after their reforms. Results are broadly robust to controlling for structural reforms on business regulation, financial market, labor market, and legal and product markets, which may also affect growth. Our findings also suggest that inequality is not affected by the growth-friendly fiscal reforms analyzed in this paper.

A structural growth slowdown is under way across the world: at current trends, the global rate of potential growth is expected to fall to a three-decade low over the remainder of the 2020s. Nearly all the forces that have powered growth and prosperity since the early 1990s have weakened. In addition, a series of shocks has affected the global economy over the past three years. A persistent and broad-based decline in long-term growth prospects imperils the ability of emerging market and developing economies to combat poverty, tackle climate change, and meet other key development objectives. The challenges presented by this potential inability call for an ambitious policy response at the national and global levels. This book presents the first detailed analysis of the growth slowdown and a rich menu of policy options to deliver better growth outcomes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This book presents a sobering analysis of the secular growth slowdown based on the most comprehensive database of potential growth estimates available to date. With nearly all the forces that have driven growth and prosperity in recent decades now weakened, the book argues that a prolonged period of weakness is under way, with serious implications for emerging market and developing economies. The authors call for bold policy actions at both the national and global levels to lift growth prospects. The book is essential reading for policy makers, economists, and anyone concerned about the future of the global economy. Beatrice Weder di Mauro Professor of International Economics, Geneva Graduate Institute, and President of the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) Economic policy making is becoming increasingly complicated in the 2020s. In addition to tackling traditional trade-offs in aggregate demand management and improving efficiency on the supply side, policy makers need to address new priorities and challenges, from addressing climate change and its impacts to improving income distribution, all in the context of lower growth rates, waning productivity growth, and flattening of the globalization process that has brought unprecedented prosperity across the globe and lifted more than a billion people out of poverty. In Falling Long-Term Growth Prospects, the authors do a phenomenal job of assessing these trends at the global and regional levels, identifying and unpacking salient twenty-first-century policy challenges, and providing thoughtful and evidence-based policy prescriptions for leaders in advanced, emerging market, and developing economies. Importantly, the book underscores that these challenges tend to be global and, hence, global cooperation at all levels is necessary to achieve optimal results. Alas, we seem to be going in the opposite direction; this book offers a road map to put us back on the path to creating a more integrated, prosperous, and equitable global community. Michael G. Plummer Director, SAIS Europe and ENI Professor of International Economics, The Johns Hopkins University

Abstract: This paper responds to the development policy debate involving the World Bank and the IMF on the use of fiscal policy not only for economic stabilization but also to promote economic growth and increase per capita income. A key issue in this debate relates to the effect of the composition of public expenditure on economic growth. Policy makers and some researchers have argued that expenditure on growth-enhancing functions could enhance future revenue and justify the provision of "fiscal space" in the budget. But there are no simple ways to identify the growth-maximizing composition of public expenditure. The current paper lays out a research strategy to explore the effects of fiscal policy, including the composition of public expenditure, on economic growth, using a time series approach. Based on the modeling strategy of Greiner, Semmler and Gong (2005) we develop a general model that features a government that undertakes public expenditure on (a) education and health facilities which enhance human capital, (b) public infrastructure such as roads and bridges necessary for market activity, (c) public administration to support government functions, (d) transfers and public consumption facilities, and (e) debt service. The proposed model is numerically solved, calibrated and the impact of the composition of public expenditure on the long-run per capita income explored for low-, lower-middle- and upper-middle-income countries. Policy implications and practical policy rules are spelled out, the extension to an estimable model indicated, a debt sustainability test proposed, and the out-of-steady-state dynamics studied.

Developing Asia’s sustained rapid growth has improved general living standards and lifted hundreds of millions of Asians out of poverty within a generation. Yet the region now finds itself confronting rising inequality. Countries where inequality has worsened over the past 2 decades collectively account for over 80% of Asia’s population. As a result, governments across the region have begun to accord a higher priority to promoting more inclusive growth. The international experience, especially the experience of the advanced economies, suggests that fiscal policy can make a potent contribution to reducing inequality. This book systematically explores the relationship between both sides of fiscal policy—public spending as well as taxes and other fiscal revenues—and inequality in Asia at great depths. On the basis of the analysis, the book sets forth a number of concrete options for rendering fiscal policy a more effective tool for more inclusive growth that benefits all Asians. Inequality, Inclusive Growth, and Fiscal Policy in Asia is written in response to an issue of growing demand in most Asian countries, and it comes at a time when Asian governments are also beginning to use fiscal policy to bridge the glaring disparities between the rich and the poor of the region. As such, the book will be a highly valuable reference for researchers, policy makers, and students as well.

The Chinese economy has entered a new phase of development in which sources of growth are not so much dependent upon pure increases in labour, investment and credit expansion, but from productivity improvement, structural changes, technological progress and the benefits from improvement of the social security and welfare improvement. When market functions are fully established to become a main channel for allocating resources, the entrepreneurship will flourish engaging in more innovative activities, workers will move more freely and have more incentives to improve their skills, firms will become more productive through market entry and exit, the economic structure will become more balanced because of the improved resource allocation, and in the end, growth will become more spontaneous and sustainable. In this sense, reforms could deliver ‘dividend’ by raising China’s potential economic growth rates. For China to confront all the challenges it faces at present, the reforms undertaken now have to be deep, comprehensive and far-reaching in order to succeed in paving the way for China to complete the task of transformation in the long-term. There is no better alternative than deepening the market-oriented reform in advancing the course of China’s modernisation for future development and prosperity and lifting China to the status of a developed economy in the next two decades. The recent China update books have covered the topic of reform from different angles and this new book is another attempt to address this important issue.

Fiscal policy in Latin America has been guided primarily by short-term liquidity targets whose observance was taken as the main exponent of fiscal prudence, with attention focused almost exclusively on the levels of public debt and the cash deficit. Very little attention was paid to the effects of fiscal policy on growth and on macroeconomic volatility over the cycle. Important issues such as the composition of public expenditures (and its effects on growth), the ability of fiscal policy to stabilize cyclical fluctuations, and the currency composition of public debt were largely neglected. As a result, fiscal policy has often amplified cyclical volatility and dampened growth. 'Fiscal Policy, Stabilization, and Growth' explores the conduct of fiscal policy in Latin America and its consequences for macroeconomic stability and long-term growth. In particular, the book highlights the procyclical and anti-investment biases embedded in the region's fiscal policies, explores their causes and macroeconomic consequences, and asesses their possible solutions.

This book reviews the debate in the context of India’s long-term growth experience, opportunities, and challenges and examines the factors that helped to achieve rapid economic growth during the past 25 years. Author Sadiq Ahmed draws on his findings to analyze the main constraints that are likely to affect the country’s growth in the future and highlight the policies that are needed to ease them.