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 capacity cannot improve fiscal capacity by simply raising taxes if it does not have a political, legal and fiscal history that has supported such state-power. In comparison to Besley and Persson's individual level study, Gordon and Li (2009) focus on the role of businesses and the financial sector in developed versus developing countries. They model businesses' participation in the financial sector—where Gordon and Li specifically refer to participation in the financial sector as using banks—as participation in the formal sector; they assume that tax authorities can monitor bank records, so that mass participation in the financial sector lends the state information