Economics & Public Finance support topic page covers issues such as macroeconomic stability, fiscal policy, economic growth, public debt, public finance management (including procurement), financial accountability as well as their practical implications for development programmers, in particular budget support operations but also technical cooperation projects.
This paper discusses Sierra Leone’s First Review Under the Extended Credit Facility (ECF) Arrangement, Request for Modification of Performance Criteria (PC), and Financing Assurances Review. Program performance has been strong. All PCs were met with comfortable margins, and all indicative targets (ITs) were met, except for the one on poverty-related spending that was missed owing to enhanced monitoring of domestic investment execution and delayed budget support. Economic growth momentum continued in 2013, with output expanding by 20 percent. The IMF staff recommends completion of the first review under the ECF arrangement.
Abstract. What narrative is deemed most compelling to justify anti-immigrant sentiments when a country’s economy is not a cause for concern? We predicted that flourishing economies constrain the viability of realistic threat arguments. We found support for this prediction in an experiment in which participants were asked to take on the role of speechwriter for a leader with an anti-immigrant message (N = 75). As predicted, a greater percentage of realistic threat arguments and fewer symbolic threat arguments were generated in a condition in which the economy was expected to decline than when it was expected to grow or a baseline condition. Perhaps more interesting, in the economic growth condition, the percentage realistic entitlements and symbolic threat arguments generated were higher than when the economy was declining. We conclude that threat narratives to provide a legitimizing discourse for anti-immigrant sentiments are tailored to the economic context.
Components of Public Finance and Public Debt Management