Fiscal space Fiscal space Fiscal space is the flexibility of a government in its spending choices, and, more generally, to the financial well-being of a government. Peter Heller (2005) defined it “as room in a government’s budget that allows it to provide resources for a desired purpose without jeopardizing the sustainability of its financial position or the stability of the economy.” There are different exact definitions for the term, and different metrics on how to measure it. The most influential definitions of the term come from international institutions, e.g., the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the United Nations agencies,
Fiscal transparency 2012 reviewed the state of fiscal transparency in the wake of the global financial crisis and proposed a series of improvements to existing international fiscal transparency standards and monitoring arrangements. The 2012 paper laid the groundwork for the IMF’s new Fiscal Transparency Code and Fiscal Transparency Evaluation that replaced the 2007 Code and the related fiscal module of the ROSC. The new Code covers four key elements of fiscal transparency: For each of the principles defined in the Code, the new Code differentiates between basic, good, and advanced practices in order to distinguish between different levels of performance and capacity