Download or read book Independent Fiscal Councils: Recent Trends and Performance written by Mr.Roel M. W. J. Beetsma and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 2018-03-29 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.