Fiscal Sustainability, Public Investment, and Growth in Natural Resource-Rich, Low-Income Countries PDF Download

Author: Issouf Samaké
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484318250
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 35

View

Book Description
This paper assesses the implications of the use of oil revenue for public investment on growth and fiscal sustainability in Cameroon. We develop a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of such investment on growth and on the path of key fiscal indicators, such as the non-oil primary deficit and public debt. Policy scenarios show that Cameroon’s large infrastructural needs and relatively low current debt levels could justify a temporary deviation from traditional policy advice that suggests saving part of the oil revenue to smooth expenditure over time. Model simulations show that a relatively high degree of efficiency of public investment is needed for scaled-up public investment to make a significant contribution to growth, while maintaining fiscal sustainability.

Author: Mr.Giovanni Melina
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1475521073
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 77

View

Book Description
This paper presents the DIGNAR (Debt, Investment, Growth, and Natural Resources) model, which can be used to analyze the debt sustainability and macroeconomic effects of public investment plans in resource-abundant developing countries. DIGNAR is a dynamic, stochastic model of a small open economy. It has two types of households, including poor households with no access to financial markets, and features traded and nontraded sectors as well as a natural resource sector. Public capital enters production technologies, while public investment is subject to inefficiencies and absorptive capacity constraints. The government has access to different types of debt (concessional, domestic and external commercial) and a resource fund, which can be used to finance public investment plans. The resource fund can also serve as a buffer to absorb fiscal balances for given projections of resource revenues and public investment plans. When the fund is drawn down to its minimal value, a combination of external and domestic borrowing can be used to cover the fiscal gap in the short to medium run. Fiscal adjustments through tax rates and government non-capital expenditures—which may be constrained by ceilings and floors, respectively—are then triggered to maintain debt sustainability. The paper illustrates how the model can be particularly useful to assess debt sustainability in countries that borrow against future resource revenues to scale up public investment.

Author: Pranav Gupta
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 147552112X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 31

View

Book Description
Some resource-rich developing countries are in the process of harnessing immense mining resources towards inclusive growth and prosperity. Nevertheless, tapping into natural resources could be challenging given the large front-loaded investment, volatile capital flows and exposure to global commodity markets. Public investment is needed to remove the often-large infrastructure gap and unlock the economic potential. However, too rapid fiscal outlays could push the economy to its limit of absorptive capacity and increase macro-financial vulnerabilities. This paper utilizes a structural model-based approach to analyze macroeconomic impacts of different public investment strategies on key fiscal and non-fiscal variables such as debt, consumption, sovereign wealth fund, and real exchange rates. We apply the model to Mongolia and draw policy recommendations from the analysis. We find that fiscal policy adjustment, particularly moderating infrastructure investment and optimizing investment efficiency is needed to maintain macroeconomic and external stability, as well as to boost the long-term sustainable growth for Mongolia.

Author: Marcos Poplawski-Ribeiro
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1475572085
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 29

View

Book Description
Staff Discussion Notes showcase the latest policy-related analysis and research being developed by individual IMF staff and are published to elicit comment and to further debate. These papers are generally brief and written in nontechnical language, and so are aimed at a broad audience interested in economic policy issues. This Web-only series replaced Staff Position Notes in January 2011.

Author: Adrian Alter
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1513597574
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 35

View

Book Description
This paper analyzes the tradeoffs between savings, debt and public investment in the Republic of Congo, a developing country with looming oil exhaustibility concerns. Our results highlight the risks to fiscal and capital sustainability of oil exporting countries from large scaling-up in public investment and oil price volatility in view of a projected decline in the oil revenue to GDP ratio. However, structural reforms that improve the efficiency of public investment can allow for a relatively faster buildup of sustainable public capital and sustain higher non-oil growth without adversely affecting the debt ratio or savings. Moreover, we show that even if a government pursues prudent fiscal policy that preserves resource wealth and debt sustainability in the face of exhaustible and volatile resource revenues, low public investment quality in the form of a misallocation of resources can hinder attainment of sustainable public capital and positive non-oil growth.

Author: Mr.Andrew Berg
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1475535562
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 48

View

Book Description
Natural resource revenues provide a valuable source to finance public investment in developing countries, which frequently face borrowing constraints and tax revenue mobilization problems. This paper develops a dynamic stochastic small open economy model to analyze the macroeconomic effects of investing natural resource revenues, making explicit the role of pervasive features in these countries including public investment inefficiency, absorptive capacity constraints, Dutch disease, and financing needs to sustain capital. Revenue exhaustibility raises medium-term issues of how to sustain capital built during a windfall, while revenue volatility raises short-term concerns about macroeconomic instability. Using the model, country applications show how combining public investment with a resource fund---a sustainable investing approach---can help address the macroeconomic problems associated with both exhaustibility and volatility. The applications also demonstrate how the model can be used to determine the appropriate magnitude of the investment scaling-up (accounting for the financing needs to sustain capital) and the adequate size of a stabilization fund (buffer).

Author: International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1498339999
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 56

View

Book Description
This paper aims to widen the prism through which Fund policy analysis is conducted for resource-rich developing countries (RRDCs). While all resource-rich economies face resource revenue exhaustibility and volatility, RRDCs face additional challenges, including lack of access to international capital markets and domestic capital scarcity. Resource exhaustibility gives rise to inter-temporal decisions of how much of the resource wealth to consume and how much to save, and revenue volatility calls for appropriate fiscal rules and precautionary savings. Under certain conditions, it would be optimal for a significant share of a RRDC’s savings to be in domestic real assets (e.g., investment in domestic infrastructure), though absorptive capacity constraints need to be tackled to promote efficient spending and short-run policies are needed to preserve macroeconomic stability. The objective of this paper is to develop new macro-fiscal frameworks and policy analysis tools for RRDCs that could enhance Fund policy advice.

Author: Juliana Dutra Araujo
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484396030
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 34

View

Book Description
The permanent income hypothesis implies that frictionless open economies with exhaustible natural resources should save abroad most of their resource windfalls and, therefore, feature current account surpluses. Resource-rich developing countries (RRDCs), on the other hand, face substantial development needs and tight external borrowing constraints. By relaxing these constraints and providing a key financing source for public investment in RRDCs, temporary resource revenues might then be associated with current account deficits, or at least low surpluses. This paper develops a neoclassical model with private and public investment and several frictions that capture pervasive features in RRDCs, including absorptive capacity constraints, inefficiencies in investment, and borrowing constraints that can be relaxed when natural resources lower the country risk premium. The model is used to study the role of investment and these frictions in shaping the current account dynamics under windfalls. Since consumption and investment decisions are optimal, the model also serves to provide current account benchmarks (norms). We apply the model to the Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa and discuss how our results can be used to inform the current account norm analysis pursued at the International Monetary Fund.

Author: Rolando Ossowski
Publisher: World Bank Publications
ISBN: 1464804966
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 180

View

Book Description
The extractive industries (EI) sector occupies an outsize space in the economies of many developing countries. Policy makers, economists, and public finance professionals working in such countries are frequently confronted with issues that require an in-depth understanding of the sector, its economics, governance, and policy challenges, as well as the implications of natural resource wealth for fiscal and public financial management. The objective of the two-volume Essentials for Economists, Public Finance Professionals, and Policy Makers, published in the World Bank Studies series, is to provide a concise overview of the EI-related topics these professionals are likely to encounter. This second volume, Fiscal Management in Resource-Rich Countries, addresses critical fiscal challenges typically associated with large revenue flows from the EI sector. The volume discusses fiscal policy across four related dimensions: short-run stabilization, the management of fiscal risks and vulnerabilities, the promotion of long-term sustainability, and the importance of good public financial management and public investment management systems. The volume subsequently examines several institutional mechanisms used to aid fiscal management, including medium-term expenditure frameworks, resource funds, fiscal rules, and fiscal councils. The volume also discusses the earmarking of revenue, resource revenue projections as applied to the government budget, and fiscal transparency, and outlines several fiscal indicators used to assess the fiscal stance of resource-rich countries. The authors hope that economists, public finance professionals, and policy makers working in resource-rich countries—including decision makers in ministries of finance, international organizations, and other relevant entities—will find the volume useful to their understanding and analysis of fiscal management in resource-rich countries.

Author: International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1498340008
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 104

View

Book Description
This supplement presents the analytical frameworks underlying the IMF’s staff’s enhanced policy analysis and advice to resource-rich developing countries (RRDCs). The proposed macro-fiscal models, which are applied to selected country or regional cases, are aimed at addressing questions regarding how to deal with resource revenue uncertainty and how to scale up spending within relevant frameworks that ensure fiscal and external sustainability while addressing absorptive capacity constraints. The country applications confirm the importance attached by both IMF staff and country authorities of using the appropriate macro-fiscal frameworks to address the specific challenges faced by RRDCs.