Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Discipline
INTRODUCTION
It will examine the role of strong fiscal institutions in improving the quality of fiscal management and helping to ensure fiscal sustainability. The course will review good practices for a sound budget process (e.g. fiscal forecasting, budget execution and treasury management, and reporting). These elements, combined with sound management and reporting on fiscal risks, are key for implementing a medium-term orientation of fiscal policy as part of a medium-term budget framework (MTBF). The course will also address different types of fiscal rules and their properties and discuss options for specific design features (e.g. choice of the target variable, escape clauses, automatic correction mechanism, coordination with sub-national governments). It will explore the possible role of fiscal councils in strengthening fiscal performance by raising public awareness and accountability. The overall objective of the project is to strengthen beneficiary countries’ capacities to design and implement medium-term macro-fiscal policies.
Course Objectives
- Describe recent fiscal policy methodologies and tools.
- Adopt a critical approach to assess data quality for fiscal policy.
- Identify appropriate fiscal rules for countries’ specific problems.
Target Group
Mid-level to senior officials in ministries of finance, treasuries, debt management offices, ministries of economy, general accounting offices, and financial planning divisions in line ministries.