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This paper estimates medium-term potential growth for a country undergoing significant structural and secular changes. Our forward-looking framework, incorporating three analytical approaches for examining economic prospects, constitutes an important complement to typical backward-looking methods that filter or extrapolate historical data. In particular, the opening of the expanded Panama Canal in 2016 highlights significant structural changes underway in the Panamanian economy. We first analyze growth determinants and find that Panama is well-placed to maintain its business model, with improvements in education and governance important to support growth. Second, the current pipeline of investment projects can help sustain investment-led growth, although at a more moderate pace. Third, further development of the logistics and tourism sectors holds promise to further build on Panama's comparative advantage.

Outward migration has been an important phenomenon for countries in Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC), particularly those in Central America and the Caribbean. This paper examines recent trends in outward migration from and remittances to LAC, as well as their costs and benefits. For the home country, the negative impact from emigration on labor resources and productivity seems to outweigh growth gains from remittances, notably for the Caribbean. However, given emigration, remittance flows play key financing and stabilizing roles in Central America and the Caribbean. They facilitate private consumption smoothing, support financial sector stability and fiscal revenues, and help reduce poverty and inequality, without strong evidence for harmful competitiveness effects through shifts in the real exchange rate.

We estimate the effects on growth of nine fiscal reform episodes in seven high-income countries using the Synthetic Control Method. These episodes are selected using an indicator-based approach applied to the evaluation of growth-friendly fiscal reforms during 1975-2010. We find that in reform countries the annual growth rate of real GDP was on average about 1 percentage point above their synthetic units 10 years after each respective reform. Moreover, countries which were initially less developed seemed to experience a larger growth impact after their reforms. Results are broadly robust to controlling for structural reforms on business regulation, financial market, labor market, and legal and product markets, which may also affect growth. Our findings also suggest that inequality is not affected by the growth-friendly fiscal reforms analyzed in this paper.

This paper examines the growth performance of sub-Saharan African countries since 1960 through the lens of growth turning points (accelerations and decelerations) and periods of sustained growth (growth spells). Growth accelerations are generally associated with improved external conditions, increased investment and trade openness, declines in inflation, better fiscal balances, and improvements in the institutional environment. Transitioning from growth accelerations to growth spells often requires additional efforts beyond what is needed to trigger an acceleration. Growth spells are sustained by fiscal policy that prevents excessive public debt accumulation, monetary policy geared toward low inflation, outward-oriented trade policies, and structural policies that reduce market distortions, as well as supportive external environment and improvements in democratic institutions. Overall, determinants of growth spells in sub-Saharan Africa are different from those in the rest of the emerging and developing countries.

Have you ever asked yourself what gives comfort to someone who demands and accepts a bribe, sells drugs or commits professional crimes for money? The majority of these people are not wealthy, and they accept small amounts of money every day from their victims.Cash, Corruption and Economic Development examines the causes of corruption and crime and highlights what brings comfort to all those who accept bribes and kickbacks, arguing that it is paper currency because it does not leave a signature of its movement from one entity to another. The author proposes that today, with the technology available, we can make the transition to a paper currency-free economy, which will help reduce corruption and crime and give a boost to economic development. The book analyses the causes of corruption and presents a replacement for the current model, to be implemented by a central bank and followed by banks operating within its jurisdiction.This book will be of interest to economists, students of economics and finance, and all those who have suffered as a result of corruption and professional crime and want these practices to end.

Diebold and Yilmaz (2015) recently introduced variance decomposition networks as tools for quantifying and ranking the systemic risk of individual firms. The nature of these networks and their implied rankings depend on the choice decomposition method. The standard choice is the order invariant generalized forecast error variance decomposition of Pesaran and Shin (1998). The shares of the forecast error variation, however, do not add to unity, making difficult to compare risk ratings and risks contributions at two different points in time. As a solution, this paper suggests using the Lanne-Nyberg (2016) decomposition, which shares the order invariance property. To illustrate the differences between both decomposition methods, I analyzed the global financial system during 2001 – 2016. The analysis shows that different decomposition methods yield substantially different systemic risk and vulnerability rankings. This suggests caution is warranted when using rankings and risk contributions for guiding financial regulation and economic policy.

Drawing on the 2016 update of the IMF's Central Bank Legislation Database, this paper examines differences in central bank legal frameworks before and after the Global Financial Crisis. Examples from select countries show that many central bank laws have undergone changes in objectives, decision-making, accountability, and data collection. A wider cross-country survey illustrates the common occurrence of price stability in central bank objectives, and varying practices in defining financial stability, “independence” versus “autonomy,” and who within a central bank determines monetary policy. The highlighted facts illustrate the uses of the database and could be a starting point for further analyses.

This paper develops a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model with a financial accelerator which captures key features of low-income countries (LICs). The predominance of supply shocks in LICs poses distinct challenges for policymakers, given the negative correlation between inflation and the output gap in the case of supply shocks. Our results suggest that: (1) in the face of a supply-side shock, the most desirable interest rate rule involves simply targeting current inflation and smoothing the policy interest rate; and (2) ignoring financial frictions when evaluating policy rules can be particularly problematic in LICs, where financial frictions loom especially large.

Model selection and forecasting in stress tests can be facilitated using machine learning techniques. These techniques have proved robust in other fields for dealing with the curse of dimensionality, a situation often encountered in applied stress testing. Lasso regressions, in particular, are well suited for building forecasting models when the number of potential covariates is large, and the number of observations is small or roughly equal to the number of covariates. This paper presents a conceptual overview of lasso regressions, explains how they fit in applied stress tests, describes its advantages over other model selection methods, and illustrates their application by constructing forecasting models of sectoral probabilities of default in an advanced emerging market economy.

Transactions on wholesale capital markets are often secured by marketable collateral. However, collateral needs balance sheet space to move within the financial system. Certain new regulations that constrain private sector bank balance sheets may have the effect of impeding collateral flows. This may have important consequences for monetary policy transmission, for short term money market functioning, and for market liquidity. In this context (and in contrast to the literature, which has focused mainly on the repo market), this paper analyzes securities-lending, derivatives, and prime-brokerage markets as suppliers of collateral. It highlights the incentives created by new regulations for different suppliers of collateral. Moreover, it argues the that central banks should be mindful of the effect of their actions on the ability of markets to intermediate collateral.

According to U.N. estimates, low-income countries will have to increase their annual public spending by up to 30 percent of GDP to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), raising the question of whether they can do it all. This paper develops a new metric of fiscal space in low-income countries that accounts for macroeconomic uncertainty, allowing us to assess whether those spending needs can be accommodated. Illustrative simulations based on this methodology imply that, even under benign conditions, the fiscal space available in lowincome countries is likely insufficient to undertake the spending needed to achieve the SDGs. Improving public investment efficiency and domestic revenue mobilization can somewhat narrow the gap but it will require major efforts relative to recent trends.

Bank liquidity stress testing, which has become de rigueur following the costly lessons of the global financial crisis, remains underdeveloped compared to solvency stress testing. The ability to adequately identify, model and assess the impact of liquidity shocks, which are infrequent but can have a severe impact on affected banks and financial systems, is complicated not only by data limitations but also by interactions among multiple factors. This paper provides a conceptual overview of liquidity stress testing approaches for banks and discusses their implementation by IMF staff in the Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP) for countries with systemically important financial sectors over the last six years.

The Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF) is a multi-region, forward-looking, DSGE model developed by the Economic Modeling Division of the IMF for policy analysis and international economic research. This paper uses GIMF to illustrate when a destination-based cash-flow tax is equivalent to a combination of a consumption tax and a labor subsidy, as the latter combination have been advocated as proxies for the implementation of destination-based cash-flow taxes. The paper documents the conditions under which both types of taxes are identical and how the equivalence in terms of the real economy and tax revenue responses can be broken, namely after the introduction of finitely lived consumers that value government debt as net wealth (real economy) and the introduction of untaxed government expenditure (tax revenue).

This paper examines the impact of government size on how output and government expenditure respond to oil price shocks in 28 oil-exporting countries between 1990 and 2016. Results suggest that if the size of government (measured by government expenditure-to-(non-oil) GDP ratio) is larger, non-oil output growth, in response to a positive oil price shock, tends to be greater and output volatility higher. Furthermore, I find that an unexpected increase in oil price leads to expansion in government expenditure and the expansion is larger, the larger is the government. This paper provides empirical evidence for direct correlation between government size and macroecnomic stability in oil-exporting countries. The findings imply that fiscal consolidation and economic diversification help to narrow down economic exposure to exogenous oil price shocks and reduce volatility in non-oil output.

China's official general government accounts do not include off-budget quasi-fiscal spending unlike the IMF's augmented government accounts. This paper argues that the broader concept of augmented government remains relevant despite recent positive measures to separate off-budget units from the government. In fact, new avenues to finance public infrastructure, such as Special Construction Funds and Government Guided Funds, have emerged and this paper re-defines the perimeter of augmented government to include them. Finally, concrete steps for improving China's fiscal accounts are put forward. If these steps are taken, the perimeter of general government would expand relative to official statistics but would likely be narrower than where augmented aggregates place it.

This paper develops new error assessment methods to evaluate the performance of debt sustainability analyses (DSAs) for low-income countries (LICs) from 2005-2015. We find some evidence of a bias towards optimism for public and external debt projections, which was most appreciable for LICs with the highest incomes, prospects for market access, and at ‘moderate'risk of debt distress. This was often driven by overly-ambitious fiscal and/or growth forecasts, and projected ‘residuals'. When we control for unanticipated shocks, we find that biases remain evident, driven in part by optimism regarding government fiscal reaction functions and expected growth dividends from investment.

This paper distills and identifies global liquidity (GL) momenta from the macro-financial data of advanced economies through a factor model with sign restrictions as policy-driven, market-driven, and risk averseness factors. Using a panel factor-augmented VAR, we investigate responses of emerging market economies (EMEs) to GL shocks. A policy-driven liquidity increase boosts growth in EMEs, elevating stock prices and currency values, while a risk averseness rise has an opposite effect. A market-driven GL expansion boosts stock markets and lowers funding costs, promoting competitiveness and current account. Inflation targeting EMEs fare better than EMEs under alternative regimes with respect to macrofinancial volatility.

This paper develops comparable financial conditions indices (FCIs) for the six large and most financially-integrated Latin American economies (LA6) by following Korobilis (2013) and Koop and Korobilis (2014). The main findings are as follows. First, the estimated FCIs are influenced by a commodity cycle, a global financial cycle, as well as country-specific episodes of financial distress. Second, by early 2017, financial conditions remained favorable in most LA6 economies relative to historical standards. Third, the impact of financial shocks on economic activity widely varies across LA6 and is otherwise found to be stronger in periods of financial stress. Fourth, exposure to regional financial spillovers also differs across LA6.

This paper presents a comparative analysis of the macroeconomic adjustment in Chile, Colombia, and Peru to commodity terms-of-trade shocks. The study is done in two steps: (i) an analysis of the impulse responses of key macroeconomic variables to terms-of-trade shocks and (ii) an event study of the adjustment to the recent decline in commodity prices. The experiences of these countries highlight the importance of flexible exchange rates to help with the adjustment to lower commodity prices, and staying vigilant in addressing depreciation pressures on inflation through tightening monetary policies. On the fiscal front, evidence shows that greater fiscal space, like in Chile and Peru, gives more room for accommodating terms-of-trade shocks.

Are uncertainty shocks a major source of business cycle fluctuations? This paper studies the effect of a mean preserving shock to the variance of aggregate total factor productivity (macro uncertainty) and to the dispersion of entrepreneurs'idiosyncratic productivity (micro uncertainty) in a financial accelerator DSGE model with sticky prices. It explores the different mechanisms through which uncertainty shocks are propagated and amplified. The time series properties of macro and micro uncertainty are estimated using U.S. aggregate and firm-level data, respectively. While surprise increases in micro uncertainty have a larger impact on output than macro uncertainty, these account for a small (non-trivial) share of output volatility.

This paper studies the impact of product and labor market reforms when the economy faces major slack and a binding constraint on monetary policy easing. such as the zero lower bound. To this end, we build a two-country model with endogenous producer entry, labor market frictions, and nominal rigidities. We find that while the effect of market reforms depends on the cyclical conditions under which they are implemented, the zero lower bound itself does not appear to matter. In fact, when carried out in a recession, the impact of reforms is typically stronger when the zero lower bound is binding. The reason is that reforms are inflationary in our structural model (or they have no noticeable deflationary effects). Thus, contrary to the implications of reduced-form modeling of product and labor market reforms as exogenous reductions in price and wage markups, our analysis shows that there is no simple across-the-board relationship between market reforms and the behavior of real marginal costs. This significantly alters the consequences of the zero (or any effective) lower bound on policy rates.

This paper analyzes how the leverage of financial institutions affects their demand for assets and the resulting value of transactions between financial institutions. The results show a positive relationship between buyer capital and the likelihood of buying assets, and between buyer capital and the value of the deal. That is, those institutions that are the least constrained in their ability to raise funding are those that demand assets and pay more for them. This result does not hold, however, for deposit-taking institutions that had access to several government programs designed to improve their liquidity position during the crisis of 2008.

To fight deflationary pressures at the zero lower bound, in November 2013, the Czech National Bank (CNB) introduced a one-sided floor on the exchange rate, as an additional monetary policy instrument. This paper investigates the impact of the FX floor on inflation in the Czech Republic, by comparing actual inflation with counterfactuals in the absence of the exchange rate floor. Three different empirical strategies are implemented: an event study, difference-in-difference regressions and a synthetic control method. The empirical results provide evidence that the exchange rate floor was effective in fighting deflationary pressures and prevented inflation from going into negative territory. The magnitude of the effect ranges between 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points. The results are robust to different econometric specifications.

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) play an important role in Emerging Europe's economies, notably in the energy and transport sectors. Based on a new firm-level dataset, this paper reviews the SOE landscape, assesses SOE performance across countries and vis-à-vis private firms, and evaluates recent SOE governance reform experience in 11 Emerging European countries, as well as Sweden as a benchmark. Profitability and efficiency of resource allocation of SOEs lag those of private firms in most sectors, with substantial cross-country variation. Poor SOE performance raises three main risks: large and risky contingent liabilities could stretch public finances; sizeable state ownership of banks coupled with poor governance could threaten financial stability; and negative productivity spillovers could affect the economy at large. SOE governance frameworks are partly weak and should be strengthened along three lines: fleshing out a consistent ownership policy; giving teeth to financial oversight; and making SOE boards more professional.

This background paper, which is a supplement to the board paper on “Ensuring Financial Stability in Countries with Islamic Banking (IB) Sectors”, presents country experiences with reforms to strengthen regulatory oversight of the IB sector. It reviews experiences with and the progress made in adapting prudential, safety nets and resolution frameworks to the specifics of IB. The selection of several countries from a range of regions with different levels of development and approaches to IB was designed to provide a representative sample of country experiences so as to enrich the policy conclusions. Such a multiplicity of experiences can help to identify common challenges that countries face in reforming their regulatory frameworks and to distill best practices. The countries, for which detailed case studies have been undertaken, are: Bahrain, Djibouti, Indonesia, Kenya, Kuwait, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey and the United Kingdom.

This paper provides background information for the IMF Board paper on “Building Fiscal Capacity in Fragile States (FS).” It presents case studies on IMF technical assistance (TA) and capacity development in the fiscal area, provided by its Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD), in collaboration with the Legal Department, in the following countries: Afghanistan, Haiti, Kosovo, Liberia, Mali, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Timor-Leste.

This paper examines the claim that exchange rate regimes are of little salience in the transmission of global financial conditions to domestic financial and macroeconomic conditions by focusing on a sample of about 40 emerging market countries over 1986–2013. Our findings show that exchange rate regimes do matter. Countries with fixed exchange rate regimes are more likely to experience financial vulnerabilities—faster domestic credit and house price growth, and increases in bank leverage—than those with relatively flexible regimes. The transmission of global financial shocks is likewise magnified under fixed exchange rate regimes relative to more flexible (though not necessarily fully flexible) regimes. We attribute this to both reduced monetary policy autonomy and a greater sensitivity of capital flows to changes in global conditions under fixed rate regimes.

Concerns about excessive variability in bank risk weights have prompted their review by regulators. This paper provides prima facie evidence on the extent of risk weight heterogeneity across broad asset classes and by country of counterparty for major banks in the European Union using internal models. It also finds that corporate risk weights are sensitive to the riskiness of an average representative firm, but not to a market indicator of a firm's probablity of default. Under plausible yet severe hypothetical scenarios for harmonized risk weights, counterfactual capital ratios would decline significantly for some banks, but they would not experience a shortfall relative to Basel III's minimum requirements. This, however, does not preclude falling short of meeting additional national supervisory capital requirements.

This paper suggests a novel approach to assess corporate sector solvency risk. The approach uses a Bottom-Up Default Analysis that projects probabilities of default of individual firms conditional on macroeconomic conditions and financial risk factors. This allows a direct macro-financial link to assessing corporate performance and facilitates what-if scenarios. When extended with credit portfolio techniques, the approach can also assess the aggregate impact of changes in firm solvency risk on creditor banks'capital buffers under different macroeconomic scenarios. As an illustration, we apply this approach to the corporate sector of the five largest economies in Latin America.

The paper uses a unique survey of remittance-receiving individuals from Tajikistan to study the impact of policy awareness on consumer behavior. The results show that knowledge of deposit insurance encourages the use of formal channels for transmitting remittances and reduces dollarization. Given the size and importance of remittances in Tajikistan, improving financial literacy and better publicizing details of the social safety net may encourage a more frequent use of formal channels for transferring remittances and reduce reliance on foreign exchange for transaction purposes. This is likely to improve bank profitability, enhance financial stability, and improve access to finance.

This paper studies private investment in India against the backdrop of a significant investment decline over the past decade. We analyze the potential causes of weaker investment at the firm level, using both firm-level financial statements and a novel dataset on firms'investment project decisions, and find that financial frictions have played a role in the slowdown. Firms with higher financial leverage invest less, as do firms with lower earnings relative to their interest expenses. Consistent with the notion of credit constraints leading to pro-cyclical investment, we also find that firms with higher leverage are (i) less likely to undertake new investment projects, (ii) less likely to complete investment projects once begun, and (iii) undertake shorter-term investment projects.

Some countries support smaller firms through tax incentives in an effort to stimulate job creation and startups, or alleviate specific distortions, such as financial constraints or high regulatory or tax compliance costs. In addition to fiscal costs, tax incentives that discriminate by firm size without specifically targeting R&D investment can create disincentives for firms to invest and grow, negatively affecting firm productivity and growth. This paper analyzes the relationship between size-related corporate income tax incentives and firm productivity and growth, controlling for other policy and firm-level factors, including product market regulation, financial constraints and innovation. Using firm level data from four European economies over 2001–13, we find evidence that size-related tax incentives that do not specifically target R&D investment can weigh on firm productivity and growth. These results suggest that when designing size-based tax incentives, it is important to address their potential disincentive effects, including by making them temporary and targeting young and innovative firms, and R&D investment explicitly.

This paper explores the macroeconomic impacts of labor and product market deregulation using a small open-economy model with formal and informal markets. We examine both the long-run effects and the transition towards the post-reform equilibrium, while our main focus are reform packages and sequencing. The unofficial sector is a major determinant of the sign, and, in particular, the magnitude of responses. South Africa, an emerging country, is considered when Bayesian estimating the model. Regarding the long run, both labor and product market reforms considerably increase output, although labor market reforms are more successful in decreasing unemployment. Nevertheless, there are short-term costs, for example, a decrease in household consumption, net exports or output, or a decrease in competition. Combining reforms, especially with product market deregulation, are good at reducing short-term costs. Finally, concerning the speed of adjustment, it is usually better to start with a labor market reform.

This paper presents new results on the relationship between education expansion and income inequality. While human capital theory suggests that income inequality increases with inequality of education outcomes, the expected relationship between income inequality and the level of education is ambiguous. Consistent with these theoretical priors, when dynamic panel estimation techniques are used to address issues of persistence and endogeneity we find a large, positive, statistically significant and stable relationship between education inequality and income inequality, especially in emerging and developing economies and among older age cohorts. The relationship between income inequality and education levels is positive but small and not always statistically significant, but we find a statistically significant negative relationship with schooling levels of younger cohorts. Statistical tests indicate that our dynamic estimators are consistent and that our identifying instruments are valid. Policy simulations suggest that education expansion will continue to be inequality reducing but that this role will diminish as countries develop.

The paper suggests an operationally usable framework for the evaluation of growth inclusiveness—the inclusive growth framework (IGF). Based on the data on growth, poverty, and inequality, the framework allows for the quantitative assessment of growth inclusiveness. The assessment relies on the decomposition of the change in poverty into growth, distribution, and decile effects, which can be calculated using the Distributive Analysis Stata Package (DASP). Availability of at least two household surveys is the main precondition for the use of the IGF. The application of the IGF is illustrated with two country cases of Senegal and Djibouti.

This paper presents new evidence on the empirical relationship between bank solvency and funding costs. Building on a newly constructed dataset drawing on supervisory data for 54 large banks from six advanced countries over 2004–2013, we use a simultaneous equation approach to estimate the contemporaneous interaction between solvency and liquidity. Our results show that liquidity and solvency interactions can be more material than suggested by the existing empirical literature. A 100 bps increase in regulatory capital ratios is associated with a decrease of bank funding costs of about 105 bps. A 100 bps increase in funding costs reduces regulatory capital buffers by 32 bps. We also find evidence of non-linear effects between solvency and funding costs. Understanding the impact of solvency on funding costs is particularly relevant for stress testing. Our analysis suggests that neglecting the dynamic features of the solvency-liquidity nexus in the 2014 EU-wide stress test could have led to a significant underestimation of the impact of stress on bank capital ratios.

This paper estimates the determinants of external debt distress in low-income countries (LICs), disentangling the roles of institutions, shocks, and policies. The most prominent factors in raising the risk of debt distress are the weak protection of private property rights, adverse shocks to real non-oil commodity prices, and a high debt burden. Results also suggest that weak economic institutions tend to raise the probability of debt distress through persistently weak economic policies and high vulnerability to external shocks. The model enables a more granular analysis of debt sustainability in LICs and has a higher predictive power compared to the earlier scant literature.

Using data from the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report as an example, this paper compares structural indicators for 25 countries in Emerging Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia with a generic country with similar charactersitics that is 40 percent richer as well as a country with the average EU income. This comparison suggests that improvements will be particularly crucial in the areas of institutions, financial market development, infrastructure, goods and labor market efficiency and areas related to innovation. For the generally more ambitious goal of reaching average EU income, the reform needs are correspondingly larger. The methodology focuses on (approximate) comparisons between countries and does not try to establish the link between structural reforms and growth. While we test for changes in empirical specifications, caveats relate to the quality of structural indicators, possible non-linearities, and reform complementarities. The approach can be applied to other indicators and at a more granular level.

It has been well-established in the literature that portfolio inflows appreciate the real effective exchange rate. However, the literature lacks a systematic empirical analysis of the impact of portfolio inflows by institutional sector or borrower type. This paper fills this gap by exploring the impact of the inflows of portfolio capital into three institutional sectors (government, banks and corporates) on the real effective exchange rate. Using a large sample of 73 countries, it shows that the effect of portfolio inflows on the real effective exchange rate depends on the sector the investment flows in. The findings are robust to different econometric methods, additional variables in the model, and various indicators of real effective exchange rates.

Simple macroeconomic frameworks like the IS/LM have survived because they help us conceptualize complex problems while also providing ‘back of the envelope'estimates of macroeconomic outcomes. Herein, a bare-bones New Keynesian extension of the IS/LM model yields solutions for core macro variables (output gap, inflation, interest rate, real exchange rate misvaluation)—expressed in percent. We then extend that standard model to also generate a corresponding set of demand-side elements—expressed in currency units. A key aim of the paper is to reconcile these two metrics in ways that also aid communication and intuition—including through IS/LM-style graphs.

This paper examines the policy challenges a country faces when it wants to both reduce inflation and maintain a sustainable external position. Mundell's (1962) policy assignment framework suggests that these two goals may be mutually incompatible unless monetary and fiscal policies are properly coordinated. Unfortunately, if the fiscal authority is unwilling to cooperate—a case of fiscal intransigence—central banks that pursue a disinflation on a ‘go it alone'basis will cause the country's external position to further deteriorate. A dynamic analysis shows that if the central bank itself lacks credibility in its inflation goal, it must rely even more on cooperation from the fiscal authority than otherwise. Echoing Sargent and Wallace's (1981) ‘unpleasant monetarist arithmetic,'in these circumstances, a ‘go it alone'policy may successfully stabilize prices and output, but only on a short-term basis.

Labor markets in Australia have adjusted smoothly to significant declines in commodity prices with little increase in unemployment. This paper examines several aspects of the adjustment, focusing on (i) evidence of increased labor market frictions following the commodity price decline; (ii) flexibility in labor input adjustment in response to demand shocks; (iii) changes in labor productivity in the wake of resource reallocation with the decline in mining investment, (iv) and the role of migration in adjusting to the commodity price and mining investment cycle. We find little evidence of increased labor market frictions with the decline in commodity prices. The relatively smooth transition has been assisted by increased flexibility in adjustment of worker hours over time. Labor productivity growth has sustained its historical average through the transition, despite some temporary drag as the economy rebalances. Finally, migration has played a key role in labor market adjustment through the commodity cycle.

The recent plunge in oil prices has brought into question the generally accepted view that lower oil prices are good for the United States and the global economy. In this paper, using a quarterly multi-country econometric model, we first show that a fall in oil prices tends relatively quickly to lower interest rates and inflation in most countries, and increase global real equity prices. The effects on real output are positive, although they take longer to materialize (around four quarters after the shock). We then re-examine the effects of low oil prices on the U.S. economy over different sub-periods using monthly observations on real oil prices, real equity prices and real dividends. We confirm the perverse positive relationship between oil and equity prices over the period since the 2008 financial crisis highlighted in the recent literature, but show that this relationship has been unstable when considered over the longer time period of 1946–2016. In contrast, we find a stable negative relationship between oil prices and real dividends which we argue is a better proxy for economic activity (as compared to equity prices). On the supply side, the effects of lower oil prices differ widely across the different oil producers, and could be perverse initially, as some of the major oil producers try to compensate their loss of revenues by raising production. Taking demand and supply adjustments to oil price changes as a whole, we conclude that oil markets equilibrate but rather slowly, with large episodic swings between low and high oil prices.

This paper discusses key issues pertaining to the economy of Bangladesh. Macroeconomic stability has been maintained since the last Article IV Consultation in November 2013. But like other Asian countries, private domestic demand, credit growth, and export growth have been tepid. The economy of Bangladesh has undergone a major transformation in the past two decades. Due to the political stability in this country, public investment is ramped up and constraints on private investment are eased, and growth is projected to accelerate gradually to 7 percent. Policies to safeguard stability, boost private investment, strengthen inclusion, and create fiscal space are emphasized in this paper.

The paper models international spillovers from a hypothetical drop of China's imports as a result of China's rebalancing of its growth model. A network-based model used in the paper allows capturing higher round network effects of the shock, which are largely unaccounted for in the existing literature. Such effects include direct spillovers from China on its trading partners, subsequent spillins among them, and spillbacks on China itself. The paper finds that the network effects most likely will be substantial, may amplify initial shock, and change the direction of its propagation. The impact on Asia and Pacific will be the strongest followed by the Middle East and Central Asia. The impact on sub-Saharan Africa would be noticeable only for some countries. Spillovers on Europe, including the Euro area, will be moderate, and spillovers on the Western Hemisphere, including the United States, would be very marginal. Metal and non-fuel commodity exporters may experience the largest negative impact.

This paper looks at the following important issues pertaining to the economy of Costa Rica: micro-financial linkages, financial sector vulnerabilities, monetary policy stance, financial deepening in Costa Rica, financial inclusion in Costa Rica, recent fiscal developments and medium-term sustainability, and female labor force participation in Costa Rica. This paper discusses linkages between the Costa Rican real economy and financial sector. Although increasingly diversified, the Costa Rican financial system is centered on banking intermediation. The banking system is highly segmented and heavily dollarized. To assess the adequacy of the current monetary policy stance, this paper estimates the neutral monetary policy interest rate.

This paper develops a structural macroeconomic model for Algeria that can help inform the discussion of the policy choices faced by the authorities. The model captures the core dynamics of Algeria's macro-economy and provides an organizing framework for forecasting and policy analysis that can facilitate an assessment of the optimal policy responses to oil shocks and the implications for macroeconomic stability. This paper also examines Algeria's main subsidies and proposes reform strategies, drawing on cross-country experiences, and discusses the channels through which a prolonged period of low oil prices may affect the banking sector, together with the policies needed to mitigate emerging financial stability risks.

This paper discusses two selected issues related to the economy of Morocco: fiscal multipliers and efficiency of public spending on education in Morocco. Because of the several exogenous shocks to the economic condition of Morocco, interest in estimating the size of the fiscal multiplier has increased in recent past. To better understand the size of the fiscal multiplier, it may be necessary to better comprehend the relationship between key macroeconomic variables in both the short and long run. Despite spending substantially on education in compared to other countries, youth unemployment in Morocco is high. This paper aims to help tackle youth unemployment by focusing on the efficiency of public spending on education.

This paper assesses public investment in the Republic of Kosovo. Public investment levels in Kosovo have exceeded comparator counties'over the last four years, partially owing to the need to build up its relatively low level of capital stock. Despite the high level of spending, the efficiency of Kosovo's public investment is relatively low. Most of Kosovo's public investment institutions are of good or medium strength on paper, but much weaker in their practical implementation. Planning institutions for investment are comprehensive but not fully effective. Systems for allocating funds for capital investment are assessed good or medium, with some implementation gaps.

This paper empirically assesses the role of structural and institutional reforms in driving productivity growth across countries at different stages of development, using a distance-to-frontier framework. It gauges whether particular policies and reforms matter more for increasing productivity growth at the aggregate and sectoral levels for some emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) than others. Recognizing the possibility of time lags between reform implementation and reform payoffs, the paper also examines how productivity gains from various reforms evolve over the the short- and medium-term.