撒哈拉以南非洲的叙述性财政整合数据集（英）

A Narrative FiscalConsolidation Dataset forSub-Saharan Africa Hany Abdel-Latif, Khalil Bechchani, Antonio David, Thibault Lemaire WP/26/11 IMF Working Papersdescribe research inprogress by the author(s) and are published toelicit comments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers arethose of the author(s) and do not necessarilyrepresent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board,or IMF management. 2026JAN IMF Working PaperAfricanDepartment A Narrative Fiscal Consolidation Dataset for Sub-Saharan AfricaPrepared byHany Abdel-Latif,Khalil Bechchani,Antonio David,Thibault Lemaire* Authorized for distribution byAmadou Nicolas Racine SyJanuary2026 IMF Working Papersdescribe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicitcomments and to encourage debate.The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of theauthor(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management. ABSTRACT:This paper introduces the first narrative-based dataset on fiscal consolidations for sub-SaharanAfrica (SSA). Drawing on staff reports from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) during the period 1990-2024andusing an approach assisted by artificial intelligence (AI),the dataset systematically identifies fiscalconsolidation actions motivated by long-term considerations (rather than cyclical conditions), such as reducingan inherited budget deficit, ensuring long-term public debt sustainability and improving economic efficiency. Byfocusing exclusively on measures exogenous to the business cycle, the dataset provides a more preciseidentification of fiscal consolidation actions for the empirical analysis of the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policyin SSA. RECOMMENDED CITATION:Abdel-Latif, H. & Bechchani, K.& David, A., & Lemaire, T. (2026).“A NarrativeFiscal Consolidation Dataset for Sub-Saharan Africa.”IMF Working Paper No. WP/26/11. A Narrative Fiscal ConsolidationDataset for Sub-Saharan Africa1 Hany Abdel-Latif,Khalil Bechchani,Antonio David,Thibault Lemaire 1. Introduction This paper constructs a new database of fiscal consolidation measures taken by the governments of 14sub-Saharan African (SSA) economies during 1990-2024 following the "narrative approach" (Romer andRomer, 2010). We use publicly available IMF staffreports (including Article IV consultations, program reviewdocuments, and recent economic development reports), which contain detailed discussions of macroeconomicconditions, fiscal policies, and medium-term plans. The paper builds on previous work by Devries et al.(2011) and Carriere-Swallow et al. (2021), which identified such fiscal consolidation measures for 17 OECDeconomies and 14 Latin American and Caribbean economies, respectively. Existing research indicates that fiscal multiplier estimates in SSA are relatively low (Arizala et al., 2021; Badruet al., 2025; Woldu and Kano, 2023a). This could possibly be explained by economic factors, such as theprevalence of a large informal sector (Lemaire, 2020; Colombo et al., 2024) and lower tax levels relative toadvanced economies and other regions (Gunter et al., 2021). Moreover, lower efficiency of public spendingand large risk premia that generate confidence effects may also be at play (David et al., 2023). However, these low estimates may also be linked to biases related to the identification strategies usedto identify the effects of fiscal policies. In SSA and, more broadly, in emerging markets and developingeconomies (EMDEs), the literature has focused on a number of methodologies, including the use of changesin the cyclically adjusted primary balance (Alesina and Ardagna, 2010; Woldu and Kano, 2023b; Badru et al.,2025), the use of shocks recovered from structural VAR models (Ilzetzki et al., 2013; Woldu and Kano, 2023a),or the use of real-time forecast errors (Auerbach and Gorodnichenko, 2013; Arizala et al., 2021). As discussedin Carriere-Swallow et al. (2021) and David et al. (2022), these conventional approaches to identifying fiscalshocks tend to include changes in fiscal variables unrelated to policy decisions, such as variations in revenuesand expenditures driven by swings in commodity prices, which also affect economic activity, thus biasingthe estimates toward understating the causal effects of fiscal policy changes. Identification problems areparticularly prominent for estimates of tax multipliers (Riera-Crichton et al., 2016). In fact, in studies ofSSA economies, tax multipliers are estimated to be close to zero (Arizala et al., 2021), while expendituremultipliers tend to be more in line with the literature for other regions (David et al., 2023). The narrative approach pioneered by Romer and Romer (2010), which identifies the timing and motivationof fiscal policy changes based on historical documents, can address some of the shortcomings associatedwith other conventionally used strategies to identify exogenous fiscal actions. A key feature of the narrativeapproach i