This blog post argues that higher health spending is unlikely to be sustained because of the pandemic’s adverse impact on revenues, other spending pressures, and the resulting deteriorating fiscal position of LLMICs. This suggests that countries will need to undertake policy actions to create additi...

As developing countries recover from the pandemic, they will need to bring their public finances to a more sustainable position by streamlining public spending and strengthening the revenue base. The need to mobilize additional resources has been exacerbated by the recent economic turmoil triggered ...

The war in Ukraine is likely to have a profound impact on budget allocations, at least in developed countries. Pressures to raise military spending have intensified. Given the economic climate, other spending is likely to come under pressure.

In a study of 131 IMF programs, I found that IMF conditionality in general helped to shield education and health spending from budget cuts in the short term, particularly during budget negotiations, but it did not succeed in significantly raising spending in relation to GDP over time. In this light,...

The official Covid death count in India as of end-June 2021 is 400,000. The reality is, of course, catastrophically worse. Unlike in other countries, authoritative excess death estimates based on official data have not been available because government recording of deaths, especially at the center, ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed 120 million people across the globe into extreme poverty, and the limited data available thus far suggests that the wealth of extremely rich individuals has risen at the same time. In this blog post, we provide new evidence that in addition to its human cost, te...

The COVID-19 pandemic has left a large dent in the government budgets of low-income countries (LIDCs). During 2020, they had no choice but to increase public spending to fight the pandemic at a time when shrinking economic activity depressed their revenues. In this blog post, we argue that whil...