Download or read book Some Algebra of Fiscal Transparency written by Timothy Irwin and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2012-09-01 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Accounting devices that artificially reduce the measured fiscal deficit can be analyzed as transactions involving unrecognized assets and liabilities. Different accounting systems recognize different sets of assets and liabilities and are thus vulnerable to different sets of devices. Some devices can be revealed by moving progressively from cash accounting to modified accrual accounting to full accrual accounting. Revealing all would require the publication of extended fiscal accounts in which all future cash flows give rise to assets or liabilities.

Download or read book Fiscal Transparency and the Performance of Government Financial Assets written by Mr.Mike Seiferling and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-01-22 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stock-flow adjustments are typically measured as the difference between changes in gross debt and deficits. These are interpreted as a proxy for unexplained fiscal discrepancies, and often associated with a lack of fiscal transparency. However, such measures fail to capture the role of financial assets and valuation changes and therefore do not correctly predict fiscal transparency. The purpose of this paper is to provide a more detailed exposition of stock-flow residuals and the relationship with fiscal transparency, highlighting government acquisition of equities and investment fund shares and their performance in secondary markets. The results suggest that the performance of government equity portfolios correlates with fiscal transparency to the extent that fully transparent governments are expected to generate between 6 and 8 percent higher returns on their equity portfolios than others. These findings suggest that the performance of government assets may be a promising area for future research of fiscal transparency and stock-flow residuals.

Download or read book Fiscal Transparency Accountability and Risk written by International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2012-07-08 with total page 55 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper surveys that state of fiscal transparency in the wake of the current crisis and looks at what can be done to improve it. It examines the relationship between fiscal transparency and fiscal outcomes; reviews progress in promoting greater fiscal transparency over the past decade; considers the lessons of the recent crisis for existing fiscal transparency standards, practices, and monitoring arrangements; and makes a series of recommendations for renewing the global fiscal transparency effort in the wake of the crisis.

Download or read book Stock Flow Adjustments Government s Integrated Balance Sheet and Fiscal Transparency written by Mr.Mike Seiferling and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2013-03-07 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper re-examines the stock-flow discrepancies of government debt and deficits and correlation with fiscal transparency. Applying the fully integrated relationship between financial stocks and flows allows for a more refined analysis of the deterministic components that make up the ‘stock-flow’ residual. Using partial measures of these stock-flow residuals, several empirical studies have found them to be significantly correlated with fiscaltransparency, inflation, fiscal rules, and banking crisis. Using fully integrated public finance data from the IMF Government Finance Statistics Yearbook for a sample of 22 countries, the findings in this paper suggest that stock-flow residuals have a significantly smaller magnitude than previously assumed and are, in fact, not correlated with fiscal transparency. A stronger determinant of fiscal transparency scores appears to be the actual reporting of fiscal data covering general government, especially a full financial balance sheet.

Download or read book Defining the Government s Debt and Deficit written by Mr.Timothy Irwin and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-11-20 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the budget deficit and the public debt feature prominently in political debate and economic research, there is no agreement about how they should be measured. They can be defined for different sets of public institutions, including the nested sets corresponding to central government, general government, and the public sector, and, for any definition of government, there are many measures of the debt and deficit, including those generated by four kinds of accounts (cash, financial, full accrual, and comprehensive), which can be derived from four nested sets of assets and liabilities. Each debt and deficit measure says something about public finances, but none tells the whole story. Each is also vulnerable to manipulation, and is likely to be manipulated if it is subject to a binding fiscal rule or target. Narrow definitions of government encourage the shifting of spending to entities outside the defined perimeter of government. Narrow definitions of debt and deficit encourage operations involving off-balance-sheets assets and liabilities, while broad measures are susceptible to the mismeasurement of on-balance-sheet assets and liabilities. Reviewing the literature on these issues, the paper concludes that governments should publish several measures of the debt and deficit in a form that clearly reveals their interrelationships.

Download or read book A Collection of Surveys on Savings and Wealth Accumulation written by Edda Claus and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-05-02 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this collection of critical surveys the reader is provided with a range of up-to-date work from some of the leading scholars in the area, writing on private and public sector aspects of savings and wealth accumulation. A survey of savings and wealth accumulation which are important dimensions of research and policy debates Discusses the measurement of genuine savings and sustainability, the estimation of wealth inequality, and recent developments in consumer credit and defaults Evaluates the impact of student loans on financial well-being, people’s retirement decisions, and the impact of pension reform Considers the distribution of wealth across generations and the importance of accurately measuring government debt, the rise of sovereign wealth funds and Islamic banking and finance

Download or read book Shining a Light on the Mysteries of State written by Mr.Timothy Irwin and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2013-10-25 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The extent of fiscal transparency in Western Europe has varied over the centuries. Although ancient Greek, Roman, and medieval governments were sometimes open about their finances, the absolute monarchies of the 1600s and 1700s shrouded them in mystery. Factors that have encouraged transparency include (i) the sharing of political power and rulers’ need to persuade creditors to lend and taxpayers’ representatives to approve new taxes; (ii) the spread of technological innovations that reduce the costs of storing and transmitting information; and (iii) the acceptance of political theories that emphasize accountable government and public discussion of government policy.

Download or read book Dispelling Fiscal Illusions written by Mr.Timothy Irwin and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2016-04-21 with total page 17 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When rights and obligations are not recognized as assets and liabilities on a government’s balance sheet, the government’s deficit can be reduced by selling off-balance-sheet assets or incurring off-balance-sheet liabilities. This paper examines how much progress has been made in recognizing assets and liabilities and thus dispelling the fiscal illusions that such transactions create. Looking at the accounts, government-finance statistics, and long-term fiscal projections produced in 28 advanced economies in the period since 2003, it finds good progress in the recognition of some assets and liabilities, such as accounts payable and simple financial assets, but much less in others, such as civil-service pensions.

Download or read book The Political Economy of Fiscal Transparency and Independent Fiscal Councils written by Mr.Roel M. W. J. Beetsma and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global surge in independent fiscal councils (IFCs) raises three related questions: How can IFCs improve the conduct of fiscal policy? Are they simultaneously desirable for voters and elected policymakers? And are they resilient to changes in political conditions? We build a model in which voters cannot observe the true competence of elected policymakers. IFCs’ role is to mitigate this imperfection. Equilibrium public debt is excessive because policymakers are “partisan” and “opportunistic.” If voters only care about policymakers’ competence, both the incumbent and the voters would be better off with an IFC as the debt bias would shrink. However, when other considerations eclipse competence and give the incumbent a strong electoral advantage or disadvantage, setting up an IFC may be counterproductive as the debt bias would increase. If the incumbent holds a moderate electoral advantage or disadvantage, voters would prefer an IFC, but an incumbent with a large advantage may prefer not to have an IFC. The main policy implications are that (i) establishing an IFC can only lower the debt bias if voters care sufficiently about policymakers’ competence; (ii) not all political environments are conducive to the emergence of IFCs; and (iii) IFCs are consequently vulnerable to shifts in political conditions.

Download or read book Fiscal Transparency Its Determinants and Consequences for Developing Countries written by Yves Mathurin Tehou Tekeng and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis has addressed the issue of fiscal transparency for developing countries in three essays. The first essay provided an overview of the existing literature on fiscal transparency and related questions, focusing on different angles and measurement methodologies involved. Our review was structured around four principal axes that include the determinants of fiscal transparency; the links between fiscal transparency and some selected institutional factors relating to international capital markets, and fiscal discipline, corruption, and economic growth. One of the major shortcomings discovered in the literature is the lack of exclusive attention devoted to developing countries on this important issue of fiscal transparency and how this could affect their growth potential. The second essay proposed a new, replicable and more objective index of fiscal transparency based on criteria of developing countries as used by the World Bank in 2009. We also provided an analysis of the determinants of fiscal transparency based on information from 27 developing countries, taking into account a number of institutional and socio-economic determinants of fiscal transparency. For example, we examined the impacts of natural resources (wealth), quality of institution, openness on the above-mentioned index of fiscal transparency by the means of OLS and Two-Stage Least Square methods. Our empirical findings indicated that the performance of our proposed index appeared to be consistent with other existing indices. The third essay presented an analysis of some potential consequences of fiscal transparency for developing countries. More specifically, based on the availability of data across the 27 countries of the sample, it was found that fiscal transparency can have some impact on the structure of government spending, education and health outcomes, attraction of international capital, but not economic growth.

Download or read book The Whole Elephant written by Mr.Timothy Irwin and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2015-12-10 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the budget deficit is much discussed in political debate and economic research, there is no agreement on how it should be measured. There are at least four options, which can be called the cash deficit, the financial deficit, the full-accrual deficit, and the comprehensive deficit. Each is informative, but each has problems of relevance or reliability. Some are more vulnerable to manipulation involving assets and liabilities that are unrecognized in the underlying accounting, others to manipulation involving the mismeasurement of recognized assets and liabilities. Governments should publish all four in a form that reveals their interrelationships.

Download or read book Manual on Fiscal Transparency written by and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fiscal Transparency Gubernatorial Popularity and the Scale of Government written by David Dreyer Lassen and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book IMF Research Bulletin December 2012 written by International Monetary Fund. Research Dept. and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2012-12-14 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Research Summaries in the December 2012 IMF Research Bulletin look at "Market Failures and Macroprudential Policy" (Giovanni Favara and Lev Ratnovski) and "Measurement Matters for House Price Indices" (Mick Silver). The Q&A column looks at "Seven Questions on Turning Points of the Global Business Cycle." The Bulletin also includes a listing of recent IMF Working Papers and Staff Discussion Notes, as well as a list of the top-viewed articles for the first three issues of IMF Economic Review in 2012. Information is also included on a call for papers for the conference "Asia: Challenges of Stability and Growth" to be held in Seoul in 2013.

Download or read book Accounting Devices and Fiscal Illusions written by Timothy Irwin and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2012-03-28 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This proposed SDN surveys the various accounting stratagems which governments have used to meet fiscal targets—thereby sidestepping the need for true adjustment—and suggests remedial actions to limit this type of fiscal non-transparency. Types of creative accounting covered includes, for instance, currency swaps to hide a debt build-up (as in Greece in 2001–07), sale and leaseback of government property (for example, in the United States), assumption of long-term pension obligations in exchange for short-term revenue (Argentina, Hungary, and other Eastern European countries), use of public-private partnerships to defer the recognition of investment spending (for instance, Portugal), and reliance on non-cash compensation (such as pension rights) to reduce measured wage bills (in the United States, United Kingdom, etc.) As is evident from the examples given, these fiscal tricks have recently come under increased international scrutiny, highlighting the importance of good fiscal reporting, accounting, and transparency in general, for avoiding unpleasant surprises, ensuring government accountability, and containing fiscal vulnerabilities.

Download or read book The Causes of Fiscal Transparency written by and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Defining Fiscal Transparency written by Lisa Philipps and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: