Publication: Fiscal Multipliers in Resource-Rich Economies: Evidence from the Gulf Countries
Loading...
Published
2025-08-21
ISSN
Date
2025-08-21
Author(s)
Editor(s)
Abstract
This paper utilizes the unique dynamics of fiscal budgeting in countries with a large hydro-carbon sector to estimate fiscal multipliers. The main identifying assumption rests on the idea that exogenously identified global hydrocarbon demand shocks can be considered plausible instruments for the fiscal space of countries in which that space is significantly dictated by hydrocarbon income, with such shocks being uncorrelated with non-hydrocarbon output at the same time. Using a local projection-instrumental variables (LP-IV) framework, the paper estimates that short-run fiscal expenditure multipliers to be in the ballpark of 0.1–0.4. In addition, the findings show that multipliers are at the upper end of this interval during recessions, indicating that fiscal policy in the Gulf countries is particularly effective during economic downturns.
Link to Data Set
Citation
“Chattha, Muhammad Khudadad; Kawalec, Tobias. 2025. Fiscal Multipliers in Resource-Rich Economies: Evidence from the Gulf Countries. Policy Research Working Paper; 11193. © World Bank. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/43630 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”
Digital Object Identifier
Associated URLs
Associated content
Other publications in this report series
Publication The Economic Value of Weather Forecasts: A Quantitative Systematic Literature Review(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-09-10)This study systematically reviews the literature that quantifies the economic benefits of weather observations and forecasts in four weather-dependent economic sectors: agriculture, energy, transport, and disaster-risk management. The review covers 175 peer-reviewed journal articles and 15 policy reports. Findings show that the literature is concentrated in high-income countries and most studies use theoretical models, followed by observational and then experimental research designs. Forecast horizons studied, meteorological variables and services, and monetization techniques vary markedly by sector. Estimated benefits even within specific subsectors span several orders of magnitude and broad uncertainty ranges. An econometric meta-analysis suggests that theoretical studies and studies in richer countries tend to report significantly larger values. Barriers that hinder value realization are identified on both the provider and user sides, with inadequate relevance, weak dissemination, and limited ability to act recurring across sectors. Policy reports rely heavily on back-of-the-envelope or recursive benefit-transfer estimates, rather than on the methods and results of the peer-reviewed literature, revealing a science-to-policy gap. These findings suggest substantial socioeconomic potential of hydrometeorological services around the world, but also knowledge gaps that require more valuation studies focusing on low- and middle-income countries, addressing provider- and user-side barriers and employing rigorous empirical valuation methods to complement and validate theoretical models.Publication The Macroeconomic Implications of Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Options(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-05-29)Estimating the macroeconomic implications of climate change impacts and adaptation options is a topic of intense research. This paper presents a framework in the World Bank's macrostructural model to assess climate-related damages. This approach has been used in many Country Climate and Development Reports, a World Bank diagnostic that identifies priorities to ensure continued development in spite of climate change and climate policy objectives. The methodology captures a set of impact channels through which climate change affects the economy by (1) connecting a set of biophysical models to the macroeconomic model and (2) exploring a set of development and climate scenarios. The paper summarizes the results for five countries, highlighting the sources and magnitudes of their vulnerability --- with estimated gross domestic product losses in 2050 exceeding 10 percent of gross domestic product in some countries and scenarios, although only a small set of impact channels is included. The paper also presents estimates of the macroeconomic gains from sector-level adaptation interventions, considering their upfront costs and avoided climate impacts and finding significant net gross domestic product gains from adaptation opportunities identified in the Country Climate and Development Reports. Finally, the paper discusses the limits of current modeling approaches, and their complementarity with empirical approaches based on historical data series. The integrated modeling approach proposed in this paper can inform policymakers as they make proactive decisions on climate change adaptation and resilience.Publication Rigging the Scores: Corruption through Scoring Rule Manipulation in Public Procurement Auctions(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-12-02)Public procurement is highly susceptible to corruption, especially in developing countries. Although open auctions are widely adopted to curb it, this paper finds that corruption remains prevalent even within this procurement format. Procurement officers can collaborate with firms to manipulate scoring rules, ensuring predetermined winners, while corrupt firms submit noncompetitive bids to meet minimum bidder requirements. Using extensive data from Chinese public procurement auctions, the paper introduces model-driven statistical tools to detect such corruption, identifying a corruption rate of 65 percent. A procurement expert audit survey confirms the tools’ reliability, with a 91 percent probability that experts recognize suspicious scoring rules when flagged. Firm-level analysis reveals that local, state-owned, and less productive firms are favored in corrupt auctions. Lastly, the paper explores policy implications. Analysis of the national anti-corruption campaign since 2012 suggests that general investigations may be insufficient to address deeply ingrained corrupt practices. Using counterfactuals based on an estimated structural model, the paper shows that implementing anonymous call-for-tender evaluations could improve social welfare by 10 percent by eliminating suspicious rules and encouraging broader participation.Publication Labor Demand in the Age of Generative AI: Early Evidence from the U.S. Job Posting Data(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-11-18)This paper examines the causal impact of generative artificial intelligence on U.S. labor demand using online job posting data. Exploiting ChatGPT’s release in November 2022 as an exogenous shock, the paper applies difference-in-differences and event study designs to estimate the job displacement effects of generative artificial intelligence. The identification strategy compares labor demand for occupations with high versus low artificial intelligence substitution vulnerability following ChatGPT’s launch, conditioning on similar generative artificial intelligence exposure levels to isolate substitution effects from complementary uses. The analysis uses 285 million job postings collected by Lightcast from the first quarter of 2018 to the second quarter of 2025Q2. The findings show that the number of postings for occupations with above-median artificial intelligence substitution scores fell by an average of 12 percent relative to those with below-median scores. The effect increased from 6 percent in the first year after the launch to 18 percent by the third year. Losses were particularly acute for entry-level positions that require neither advanced degrees (18 percent) nor extensive experience (20 percent), as well as those in administrative support (40 percent) and professional services (30 percent). Although generative artificial intelligence generates new occupations and enhances productivity, which may increase labor demand, early evidence suggests that some occupations may be less likely to be complemented by generative artificial intelligence than others.Publication Investment Policy Reforms and Foreign Direct Investment Inflows(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-12-01)Foreign direct investment has the potential to introduce much-needed capital and expertise in emerging and developing economies. To attract foreign direct investment, many countries have eased restrictions on foreign ownership in various sectors, reformed their institutions, and set up investment promotion agencies. Until the mid-2010s, Ethiopia remained one of the few countries that resisted this trend, with several stringent restrictions in place on foreign direct investment entry and operations in the country. This study employs a synthetic control method to examine patterns in foreign capital inflows following a series of investment policy reforms that were substantively introduced in the mid-2010s (circa 2015). The study offers evidence that investment policy reforms contributed to a significant foreign direct investment inflow in Ethiopia, compared to what would have occurred in the absence of these policies. An alternative strategy that conservatively specifies the donor country pool using an AI-assisted deep search technique changes the donor pool weighting matrix of the synthetic control method, but the estimated policy effects largely remain robust to this specification. The findings highlight the importance of targeted reforms in promoting foreign direct investment inflow in developing countries.
Journal
Journal Volume
Journal Issue
Collections
Related items
Showing items related by metadata.
Publication Gulf Economic Update, June 2025(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-06-20)This special focus chapter analyzes the effectiveness of fiscal policy in fostering economic growth in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. In doing so, the principal focus of the chapter is on fiscal multipliers, which measure the effect of changes in government spending or revenue on the country’s output (GDP). In simple terms, they quantify how much economic activity is generated by each dollar of fiscal policy action. The need to evaluate the effectiveness of fiscal policy is especially relevant for GCC countries given their intensified economic diversification efforts in recent years. Globally, fiscal policy has been playing a growing role, with public expenditure as a share of GDP growing in more than 70 percent of all countries since the Global Financial Crisis. In the GCC, the share of fiscal expenditure in non-hydrocarbon GDP ranges between 36 percent and 84 percent. As public spending is often undertaken through large-scale public investments, this calls for a better understanding of the returns on GDP from those investments, the effectiveness of capital allocation, and whether fiscal policies are well designed to maximize employment and job creation, among other objectives. On the revenue side, most of the income is related to sales of hydrocarbon products, as hydrocarbon sales revenue makes up between 40 and 90 percent of overall government revenues in 2023. The main policy takeaway is that fiscal policy is broadly effective at stabilizing cyclical fluctuations of (non-hydrocarbon) output, especially during times of economic dearth. While fiscal multipliers in the GCC appear to be positive across the board, they are generally weak and less than one, in line with the estimates in the literature for a multitude of other countries. Policymakers should therefore not expect multiplying effects in response to stabilizing fiscal policy measures, which occur for fiscal multipliers that are larger than one. This does not, however, imply a total absence of fiscal policy impact on output. As the estimated multipliers are significantly larger during recessions, the findings make a robust case for adopting countercyclical fiscal policy. Such countercyclical policy should aim at an expansion of demand through fiscal stimulus only during demand-driven downturns.Publication Do Resource-Rich Countries Suffer from a Lack of Fiscal Discipline?(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2016-02)Fiscal indicators for resource-rich and resource-poor low- and middle-income countries are compared using annual data from 1996 to 2012. Resource richness is defined by export composition: fuel greater than a 25 percent share and/or ores and metals greater than a 10 percent share. Fuel exporters have a significantly better general government fiscal balance than the rest of the sample, and higher revenues and expenditures, which are approximately evenly split between extra consumption expenditure and extra capital expenditure. Only about a quarter of their extra revenue goes into extra consumption expenditure, and this proportion has been lower since 2005. Fuel exporters' expenditure reacts with a lag to oil price fluctuations. There are no significant differences between ores and metals exporters and resource-poor countries, or between new and old resource exporters, in aggregate expenditures and revenues. Ores and metals exporters spend more on investment and less on government consumption. Some individual country cases are briefly discussed.Publication Gulf Economic Update, December 2025: The Gulf'’s Digital Transformation - A Powerful Engine for Economic Diversification(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2025-12-01)In a period marked by global uncertainty, supply chain disruptions, and ongoing geopolitical tensions, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates are accelerating national reform programs to transition toward more diversified and sustainable economies. This edition of the Gulf Economic Update report has three objectives. First, it takes stock of the progress on diversification over the last decade, using well recognized metrics: diversification in economic activity, fiscal diversification, and export diversification. It examines indicators such as the share of nonhydrocarbon GDP, export composition, and fiscal revenue sources to provide a comprehensive assessment of diversification efforts. These indicators are used to illustrate how effectively Gulf economies are reducing their dependence on hydrocarbons and expanding into nonoil sectors. By benchmarking these measures against historical data and international comparisons, the analysis helps policymakers and stakeholders gauge the effectiveness of diversification strategies and refine future policies to achieve more balanced, resilient, and sustainable economic growth across the region. Second, as in previous editions, it provides an analysis of the recent economic trends, while placing them within regional and global contexts. Third, given the importance of digital development in economic growth, the report has a special focus on the common drivers of the Gulf’s digital transformation and the impact of digital government on the GCC’s economy.Publication Gulf Economic Update, December 2024(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2024-12-09)The Gulf Economic Update (GEU) is the product of the Economic Policy unit for Middle East and North Africa at the World Bank Group. It provides an update on key economic developments and policies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries over the past six months, places them in a longer-term and global context and assesses the implications of these developments and other changes in policy on the outlook for the GCC. Its coverage ranges from the macroeconomy to financial markets to indicators of human welfare and development. It is intended for a wide audience, including policymakers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in the GCC.Publication Fiscal Management in Resource-Rich Countries(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2016-06-21)The extractive industries (EI) sector occupies an outsize space in the economies of many developing countries. Policy makers, economists, and public finance professionals working in such countries are frequently confronted with issues that require an in-depth understanding of the sector, its economics, governance, and policy challenges, as well as the implications of natural resource wealth for fiscal and public financial management. The objective of the two-volume Essentials for Economists, Public Finance Professionals, and Policy Makers, published in the World Bank Studies series, is to provide a concise overview of the EI-related topics these professionals are likely to encounter. This second volume, Fiscal Management in Resource-Rich Countries, addresses critical fiscal challenges typically associated with large revenue flows from the EI sector. The volume discusses fiscal policy across four related dimensions: short-run stabilization, the management of fiscal risks and vulnerabilities, the promotion of long-term sustainability, and the importance of good public financial management and public investment management systems. The volume subsequently examines several institutional mechanisms used to aid fiscal management, including medium-term expenditure frameworks, resource funds, fiscal rules, and fiscal councils. The volume also discusses the earmarking of revenue, resource revenue projections as applied to the government budget, and fiscal transparency, and outlines several fiscal indicators used to assess the fiscal stance of resource-rich countries. The authors hope that economists, public finance professionals, and policy makers working in resource-rich countries—including decision makers in ministries of finance, international organizations, and other relevant entities—will find the volume useful to their understanding and analysis of fiscal management in resource-rich countries.
Users also downloaded
Showing related downloaded files
No results found.