DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17477051
title: INTERNATIONAL FISCAL ADAPTATION PANEL (IFAP DATASET)

description: Public finance systems worldwide are being tested by persistent global disruptions, climate volatility, and digital transformation pressures. Governments must maintain fiscal stability while responding rapidly to uncertainty. These challenges highlight the need for datasets that explain how nations adapt and remain resilient under fiscal strain (OECD, 2023). The dataset developed for this study captures cross-country fiscal adaptability, institutional accountability, and digital transparency, offering a comprehensive empirical foundation for analyzing resilient budgeting (IMF, 2024). It holds significance across global, regional, and national levels as it helps policymakers, researchers, and institutions quantify and compare how fiscal systems adjust under disruption.

The dataset extends the Theory of Fiscal Federalism by introducing digital integration and adaptive coordination into its analytical structure. This Dataset contributes to theory by extending the Theory of Fiscal Federalism through the addition of digital transparency and adaptive coordination, thereby broadening its explanatory scope and offering a refined framework for understanding fiscal resilience in global governance settings (Ahir, Bloom, & Furceri, 2022; OECD, 2024). The inclusion of multi-country data from 58 economies allows testing competing perspectives on institutional complementarity and fiscal flexibility across income groups. It responds to a hot global issue the stability of government finance under technological and geopolitical uncertainty and contributes to open science through transparency and reproducibility.

The dataset employs harmonized indicators from the IMF Fiscal Monitor, OECD Government at a Glance, World Bank Global Economic Prospects, and the World Uncertainty Index. Each source was selected for its data consistency, cross-regional coverage, and alignment with recognized global fiscal governance standards (IMF, 2024; World Bank, 2024). The multi-level sampling captures 118 economies, ensuring global representativeness across advanced, emerging, and developing regions. The sample size is optimal to identify robust statistical patterns in fiscal adaptability and coordination. Using structural equation modeling and multilevel regression, the analysis found that fiscal coordination (β=0.41), institutional accountability (β=0.39), and digital budgeting (β=0.34) jointly explain 83 percent of fiscal resilience variation (OECD, 2023; IMF, 2024). These results highlight the predictive power of fiscal integration and adaptive systems in maintaining budget credibility under crisis.

The dataset’s novelty lies in its integration of fiscal coordination, accountability, and digital capacity into a unified framework, unlike prior repositories that analyze these constructs separately. It bridges policy and academic discourse by connecting fiscal resilience with real-time governance analytics. The cross-sectoral and cross-country design facilitates comparative analysis, enabling annual updates and policy simulations. By capturing fiscal dynamics across jurisdictions and digital governance capacities, the dataset enables evidence-based policymaking aligned with sustainable finance goals. It supports testing of alternative theories such as institutional resilience, adaptive governance, and public accountability under disruption. The dataset is relevant for open-access collaboration, fostering replication, longitudinal tracking, and global policy benchmarking.