4 Seizing the Moment
Good economic times offer an opportunity
to tackle budget deficits
Christoph B. Rosenberg
6 Climbing Out of Debt
A new study offers more evidence that cutting
spending is less harmful to growth than raising taxes
Alberto Alesina, Carlo A. Favero, and Francesco Giavazzi
12 Public Finance Goes Digital
Technology is reshaping how governments raise and
spend money
Sanjeev Gupta, Michael Keen, Alpa Shah, and
Geneviève Verdier
16 Point of View: The Low-Income Trap
Urgent steps are needed to end the cycle
of poverty and debt
Fanwell Kenala Bokosi
18 Raising Revenue
Five country cases illustrate how best to improve
tax collection
Bernardin Akitoby
22 Spreading the Wealth
Fiscal instruments can reduce inequality, but some
yield short-term results while others bear fruit over
the long term
François Bourguignon
26 Fiscal Politics
A historic meeting laid the foundations of US finances
Vitor Gaspar and David Amaglobeli
30 The Debt Web
The interwar period shows how a complex network
of sovereign debt can aggravate financial crises
Mark De Broeck, Era Dabla-Norris, Nicolas End,
and Marina Marinkov