Search

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the impact of Mexico’s energy reform on hydrocarbons production. These reforms aim to increase oil and gas production by eliminating the state oil company’s (PEMEX) monopoly on exploration and production of hydrocarbons, while retaining the prime directive that these resources are the property of the Mexican nation. This paper focuses on the nature of reforms and what problems these reforms are addressing. It presents illustrative production scenarios for crude oil and natural gas and estimates the commensurate investment costs and foreign direct investment associated with each scenario. The paper also examines the markets for the distribution of natural gas and electricity.

This Selected Issues paper for Chile describes the postcrisis recovery experience. The recovery from the 2008–2009 global crisis has been markedly different both among advanced and emerging economies. The steady improvement in the labor wedge-distortions related to the consumption leisure decision helped support the recovery. In Chile, the growth generated by this improvement, was sufficient to overcome the relatively weak performance of efficiency (TFP). Chile’s recovery has been characterized by strong investment growth, 0.8 percentage points higher than the precrisis trend. The establishment of the Financial Stability Council in 2011 is an important step to ensure close coordination among the institutions involved in Chile’s financial prudential framework.

Economic outcomes in Jamaica have fallen short of the authorities’ objectives in recent years. As the government looks to reinvigorate its growth and debt reduction strategy, it is instructive to examine how exogenous shocks and other unanticipated developments can affect economic outcomes. First, it examines the impact on Jamaica’s economy of external economic slowdowns and credit crunches. Second, it develops a framework to assess the probabilities of successfully reducing debt below pre-specified thresholds. Furthermore, the relationships that existed in the past may not hold in the future.

The paper presents a non-technical survey of some of the issues involved in the design of stabilization policy in developing countries with special emphasis on policy responses to external shocks. First, the six most important external economic parameters of developing countries are reviewed: 1) the terms of trade, 2) the growth of world markets, 3) the cost and availability of private external finance, 4) the cost and availability of official and other concessional finance, including aid, 5) the world rate of inflation and 6) the exchange rates between the currencies of the major industrial countries. The paper then reviews the macroeconomic policy arsenal and the demand and supply effects of the various policy instruments (monetary and credit policy, the entire array of fiscal instruments, exchange rate policy, the use of exchange and capital controls and incomes policy). Finally, there is a discussion of stabilization responses to four external shocks: a deterioration in the terms of trade, a slowdown in the rate of growth of export demand, an increase in the interest rate at which developing countries borrow abroad and an increase in the external rate of inflation. The prevalence of repressed financial markets and credit rationing makes effective demand and effective supply responses to monetary, fiscal and exchange rate policy quite different from what they are in most of the industrial world.