01879cas a2200277 a 4500 AALejournalIMF018346 230101c9999 xx r poo 0 0eng d 5.00 USD 9781484348284 1018-5941 BD-DhAAL BD-DhAAL Beetsma, Roel. Independent Fiscal Councils : Recent Trends and Performance / Roel Beetsma, Xavier Debrun, Xiangming Fang, Young Kim. Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2018. 1 online resource (28 pages) IMF Working Papers <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students Countries increasingly rely on independent fiscal councils to constrain policymakers' discretion and curb the bias towards excessive deficits and pro-cyclical policies. Since fiscal councils are often recent and heterogeneous across countries, assessing their impact is challenging. Using the latest (2016) vintage of the IMF Fiscal Council Dataset, we focus on two tasks expected to strengthen fiscal performance: the preparation or assessment of forecasts, and the monitoring of compliance with fiscal rules. Tentative econometric evidence suggests that the presence of a fiscal council is associated with more accurate and less optimistic fiscal forecasts, as well as greater compliance with fiscal rules. Mode of access: Internet Debrun, Xavier. Fang, Xiangming. Kim, Young. IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2018/068 Full text available on IMF http://elibrary.imf.org/view/journals/001/2018/068/001.2018.issue-068-en.xml IMF e-Library