This paper provides a set of analytical tools and best practices to help policy makers understand and manage fiscal risks. Rather than seeking to provide an alternative to standard debt sustainability analysis, the paper’s focus is on how countries can assess and manage fiscal risks more broadly—including tail risks—and to better incorporate uncertainty into fiscal policy analysis. The paper is structured as follows. The next section provides an overview of the scale and nature of fiscal risks, based on a comprehensive survey of 80 countries. This is followed by an assessment of the state of fiscal risk analysis and management, as well as proposed enhancements to both in the form of a new fiscal stress test and an expanded fiscal risk management toolkit. After this, an analytical approach that allows policymakers to assess the implications of fiscal risks for the formulation of fiscal policy is presented. Finally, the paper concludes with a discussion of the priorities in advanced economies (AEs), emerging market economies (EMEs), and low-income countries (LICs) seeking to improve their analysis and management of fiscal risks.

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