Alberta’s most insightful political commentator is back with another essential book. Kevin Taft, together with economists Mel McMillan and Junaid Jahangir, follows the money to uncover why Alberta — one of the richest places on earth — still talks poor when it comes to public services.Do we really spend more than we can afford, more than we can sustain, on health care? On education? Why doesn’t Alberta have enough hospital beds? Why have our schools faced teacher layoffs? Why are o...

Praise for Financial Analysis Tools and Techniques:"Bona fide treasury for executives, managers, entrepreneurs. Have long used this great work in corporate & university programs. Uniquely makes the arcane clear."Allen B. Barnes, Provost, IBM Advanced Business Institute"A candidate for every consultant-to-management's bookshelf. Its beauty lies in the dynamic model of the business system and its management decision framework."Stanley Press CMC, Book review in C2...

The subnational dimension of infrastructure has emerged as one of the greatest challenges in contemporary public finance policy and management. Ensuring the efficient provision of infrastructure represents a challenge for all countries irrespective of their level of centralization or decentralization. This book proposes an innovative approach for the strengthening of decentralized public investment and infrastructure management.Decentralization and Infrastructure in the Global Econ...

The debate on government debt in the context of possible reforms of the international financial architecture has thus far focused on crisis resolution. This paper seeks to broaden this debate. It asks how government debt could be structured to pursue other objectives, including crisis prevention, international risk-sharing, and facilitating the adjustment of fiscal variables to changes in domestic economic conditions. To that end, the paper considers recently developed analytical approaches t...

Mozambique is an economic success story in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Its remarkable achievements offer valuable lessons to other low-income countries in a post-stabilization economic phase, including how they can efficiently manage a scaling up of foreign aid aimed at poverty reduction. Of special interest to other sub-Saharan countries are the book's discussions of Mozambique's progress toward consolidating macroeconomic and financial stability, and the challenges it faces in ensuring lon...

This paper seeks to draw lessons from the IMF’s experience in handling financial crises around the globe over the past ten years that are relevant to the challenges faced by countries in Latin America, especially in the wake of the recent crisis in Argentina. Experience suggests that there is no quick or easy fix in the face of a wide-ranging crisis involving both acute external financing pressures and rapidly changing asset prices that undermine financial stability and household and corporat...

The current financial crisis started from the US real estate market and after, though the increase of risk premium requested by investors and due to the lack of liquidity of all financial markets, it became a world financial crisis. A detailed analysis during the crisis focuses attention on asset management, the real estate and public sector.

As the financial crisis abates, governments are faced with the challenge of balancing the withdrawal of fiscal support with reestablishing sound public finances and sustainable growth. This volume presents papers from an IMF-sponsored conference of senior policymakers, academics, and senior representatives of the private sector on unwinding public interventions initiated during the crisis. There was broad agreement that the main goal of any strategy for unwinding such interventions should ...

This paper examines the effects of three "shocks" - the disintegration of the U.S.S.R., domestic economic reform, and changing relations with other countries- on Russia's balance of payments position. The importance of consistent economic reform and a liberal trade regime is stressed, together with the role of financial assistance.

This paper examines Hungary's reforms since 1968. It discusses the government's medium-term adjustment program, unveiled in the fall of 1990, which aims to install the key elements of a market economy in three years