Yesterday in a blog post, IMF's Fiscal Affairs Director Carlo Cottarelli stressed the need for fiscal transparency on the part of governments around the world in attaining a comprehensive debt-deal. By fiscal transparency, Cottarelli means the necessity for governments to make fiscal information accurate and readily available.

The IMF's most recent World Economic Outlook has a very helpful chapter looking at six case studies on countries who have dealt with a high debt burden. However, unlike our "Fiscal Turnarounds" paper from a few years ago, not all of these cases are success stories (and only one case overlaps with our paper).

A new working paper by four authors at the International Monetary Fund takes a look at fiscal rules around the world. The Peterson-Pew Commission on Budget Reform put out a more general discussion of fiscal rules in December, but the IMF specifically looks at similiarities and differences between specific regimes.

Today, the IMF released the concluding statement of its Article IV Consultation, calling for the U.S. to pass a deficit reduction plan quickly but phase in implementation to avoid unduly harming the recovery. Their economic forecast shows a continued slow recovery ahead--even with much of the fiscal cliff averted--as real GDP growth is projected to average 2.0 and 2.3 percent in 2012 and 2013, respectively.

The IMF has a new report out called "Accounting Devices and Fiscal Illusions," a handy guide to different types of fiscal trickery that have been employed by European countries and the US. Mainly, these gimmicks have to do with increasing revenue or decreasing spending in the short term but creating new liabilities or lowering revenue over the longer term. In the case of Europe, these tricks move money around to meet present fiscal targets.

Earlier this week, the IMF released its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO), with a section devoted to the fiscal situation of the U.S. The IMF aptly reminds us that putting in place measures to gradually stabilize and reduce debt needs to be the "first priority" for U.S. lawmakers.

As the IMF said:

Earlier this week, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) released its annual report The United States: 2011 Article IV Consultation, highlighting the need for the United States to enact a comprehensive fiscal reform plan that would stabilize and reduce our debt.

As we have been looking at a number of fiscal plans for the US recently, the IMF has a useful appendix in its most recent Fiscal Monitor on what has worked and what has failed in past fiscal consolidation attempts (a topic we have delved into in the past).

It's an interesting time in the fiscal policy world right now. A lot of uncertainty is up in the air about what will happen with our deficits and debt. Last week, a lot of bad news came in.

Game On – The Super Bowl in Texas won’t be until Sunday, but Washington had its own big game last week as President Obama gave his State of the Union address.