The real effective exchange rate (REER) is the most commonly used measure for assessing international competitiveness. We develop a methodology to estimate the REER that incorporates two distinctive elements that are not considered in the current literature and apply it to the Mediterranean Quartet (MQ) of Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain, whose common pattern of real appreciation has created concern in policy and academic circles. The two elements that we add to the existing literature are (i) product heterogeneity when identifying each country's international competitors and their weights and (ii) a comprehensive treatment of services exports. Our refined measure suggests a modest reduction in the observed REER gap between the MQ countries and the other euro area countries. In particular, considering product heterogeneity and services exports implies a lower real appreciation from 1998 to 2006 on the order of 2-3 percent for all MQ countries. These are difference-in-difference estimates relative to the results obtained for the rest of the euro area countries using the same methodology.

We have spent the last three decades engaged in a pointless and irrelevant debate about the relative merits of privatization or nationalization. We have been arguing about the wrong thing while sitting on a goldmine of assets. Don’t worry about who owns those assets, worry about whether they are managed effectively. Why does this matter? Because despite the Thatcher/ Reagan economic revolution, the largest pool of wealth in the world – a global total that is much larger than the world’s total pensions savings, and ten times the total of all the sovereign wealth funds on the planet – is still comprised of commercial assets that are held in public ownership. If professionally managed, they could generate an annual yield of 2.7 trillion dollars, more than current global spending on infrastructure: transport, power, water, and communications. Based on both economic research and hands-on experience from many countries, the authors argue that publicly owned commercial assets need to be taken out of the direct and distorting control of politicians and placed under professional management in a ‘National Wealth Fund’ or its local government equivalent. Such a move would trigger much-needed structural reforms in national economies, thus resurrect strained government finances, bolster ailing economic growth, and improve the fabric of democratic institutions. This radical, reforming book was named one of the "Books of the Year".by both the FT and The Economist.

The 1993 SNA represents a major advance in national accounting. While updating and clarifying the 1968 SNA, the 1993 SNA provides the basis for improving compilation of national accounts statistics, promoting integration of economic and related statistics, and enhancing analysis of economic developments. The 1993 SNA deals more clearly with relationships between economic flows (such as production, income, savings, accumulation, and financing) and links between these flows and stocks. At the same time the 1993 SNA reflects the many significant developments that have taken place in financial markets and completes the integration of balance sheets into the system. The 1993 SNA also suggests how satellite accounts (e.g. environmental accounts) and alternative classifications (e.g., through social accounting matrices) an be used to augment the central framework of the system.

The 2007–09 international financial crisis underscored the importance of reliable and timely statistics on the general government and public sectors. Government finance statistics are a basis for fiscal analysis and they play a vital role in developing and monitoring sound fiscal programs and in conducting surveillance of economic policies. The Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014 represents a major step forward in clarifying the standards for compiling and presenting fiscal statistics and strengthens the worldwide effort to improve public sector reporting and transparency.

Prior to the COVID-19 shock, the key challenge facing policymakers in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia region was how to generate strong, sustainable, job-rich, inclusive growth. Post-COVID-19, this challenge has only grown given the additional reduction in fiscal space due to the crisis and the increased need to support the recovery. The sizable state-owned enterprise (SOE) footprint in the region, together with its cost to the government, call for revisiting the SOE sector to help open fiscal space and look for growth opportunities.

Transparency in government operations is widely regarded as an important precondition for macroeconomic fiscal sustainability, good governance, and overall fiscal rectitude. Notably, the Interim Committee, at its April and September 1996 meetings, stressed the need for greater fiscal transparency. Prompted by these concerns, this paper represents a first attempt to address many of the aspects of transparency in government operations. It provides an overview of major issues in fiscal transparency and examines the IMF's role in promoting transparency in government operations.

The Government of Pakistan strongly supports public–private partnership (PPP) initiatives. From 1990 to 2019, Pakistan witnessed 108 financially closed PPP projects, with a total investment of approximately $28.4 billion. About 88% of these projects are in the energy sector, attracting more than $24.7billion, followed by investments in the port sector. In early 2021, Parliament approved the amendments to the 2017 PPP Law, enacting the Public Private Partnership Authority (Amendment) Act 2021. This further strengthens the enabling legal and regulatory framework for developing and implementing PPPs, thereby promoting private sector investment in public infrastructure and related services.

This book helps fill the void in teaching materials about the Latin American public sector. It began as two case studies of public enterprises jointly carried out by the Office for Public Sector Studies of the University of Texas at Austin, which the author directed, and the Universidad del Pacifico in Lima. Over the years, the cases expanded into

Public expenditure control has become a central element of economic policy in many countries. This report analyses budget practices and some recent innovations from the point of view of senior public servants in the central budget offices of ...