Global climate change has moved high on the agenda of key policy makers in many industrial countries. As a “global public good,” a coordinated global response in terms of efforts at mitigation will be critically necessary. Equally, many countries will face serious economic harm in the absence of adaptation efforts. As one of the key global institutions with responsibility for global economic stability and growth, this paper argues that climate change should be on the economic surveillance agenda of the International Monetary Fund, with the focus principally on the macroeconomic implications. While the IMF’s role would be necessarily limited, the paper raises questions about the adequacy of the financing and organization of current global coordination mechanisms to address climate change.

Debt relief and the scaling up of aid to low-income countries should allow for increased fiscal space for expenditure programs to spur long-term growth and reduce poverty. But as discussed in Peter Heller’s article “Pity the Finance Minister” (World Economics, Vol. 6, No. 4), designing a suitable medium-term fiscal framework that fosters a sustainable delivery of better public services and infrastructure while maintaining a credible commitment to fiscal prudence raises many challenges. This article first discusses what low-income countries can do to formulate fiscal policy frameworks that are ambitious in their goals for absorbing additional aid while maintaining longer-term sustainability of the expenditure programs and government finances. It then suggests the approaches required to manage the heightened fiscal policy risks associated with a scaled-up aid environment, including issues of coordination with monetary policy. And finally, the article discusses what institutional changes are needed if donors and countries are to facilitate the implementation of a higher level of aid-financed spending programs.

Substantial scaling up of aid flows will require development partners to address many issues, including the impact of higher aid flows on the competitiveness of aid recipients, the management of fiscal and monetary policy, the delivery of public services, behavioral incentives, and the rate of growth of the economy. Other issues will include the appropriate sequencing of aid-financed investments, balancing alternative expenditure priorities, the implications for fiscal and budget sustainability, and exit strategies from donor funding. Donors will need to ensure greater long-term predictability and reduced short-term volatility of aid. The international financial institutions can play a critical role in helping countries address these scaling-up issues.

Have government debt levels reached dangerous levels? Certainly, for some countries, the data would suggest so. However, this paper will argue that for many governments, the amount of explicit debt on their balance sheets seriously understates the magnitude of their future fiscal obligations. This clearly emerges from the assessment of many analysts on the size of the prospective fiscal obligations associated with aging populations. But this point is further reinforced if one examines the range of other fiscal risk exposures of governments. Thus, an examination of a government’s explicit debt should only be the starting point for assessing the sustainability of a government’s fiscal position.

This paper highlights the economic challenges that would be associated with a successful effort by industrial countries to meet the goal of devoting 0.7 percent of their GNP to official development assistance (ODA) to help poor countries. To help achieve the Millennium Development Goals, enhanced ODA must be as productive as possible. In weighing the distribution of aid among countries, it is necessary to limit potentially adverse ‘real transfer effects’. A multi-pronged approach to ODA is recommended that includes the use of trust funds and the financing of global public goods, in addition to direct bilateral transfers.