Xavier Debrun


Xavier Debrun is an economist in the Fiscal Affairs Department of the IMF. After receiving his PhD from the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, he was a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Department of Economics of Harvard University. Debrun joined the IMF in 2000 where he contributed to the World Economic Outlook. His research interests include international policy coordination, monetary unions, fiscal policy and fiscal rules, and stochastic analysis of debt sustainability. His work has been published in journals such as the Economic Journal and the European Economic Review.




Papers Published in World Economics:


Making Fiscal Space Happen!

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.

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