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Morocco's Quest for Stronger and Inclusive Growth
Throughout the past two decades, Morocco has faced several external and domestic shocks, including large swings in international oil prices, regional geopolitical tensions, severe droughts, and most recently the impact of the pandemic and the economic fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Despite rough waters, the government stayed the course and remained focused not only on immediate stability, but also on the long-term needs of the Moroccan economy. This involved the adoption of a series of difficult measures, like the elimination of energy subsidies, and a strategy aimed at improving the country's infrastructure, diversifying the production and export bases by attracting foreign inve...
Repeated Use of IMF-Supported Programs: Determinants and Forecasting
This paper studies the determinants of repeated use of Fund-supported programs in a large sample covering virtually all General Resources Account (GRA) arrangements that were approved between 1952 and 2012. Generally, the revolving nature of the IMF’s resources calls for the temporary sup-port of member countries to address balance of payments problems while repeated use has often been viewed as program failure. First, using probit models we show that a small number of country-specific variables such as growth, the current account balance, the international reserves position, and the institutional framework play a significant role in explaining repeated use. Second, we discuss the role of IMF-specific and program-specific variables and find evidence that a country’s track record with the Fund is a good predictor of repeated use. Finally, we conduct an out-of-sample forecasting exer-cise. While our approach has predictive power for repeated use, exact forecasting remains challenging. From a policy perspective, the results could prove useful to assess the risk IMF programs pose to the revolving nature of the Fund’s financial resources.
Poverty, Growth, and Inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa
Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have shown strong signs of growth resilience in the aftermath of the recent global crisis. Yet, this paper finds evidence that growth has more than proportionately benefited the top quintile during PRSP implementation. It finds that PRSP implementation has neither reduced poverty headcount nor raised the income share of the poorest quintile in Sub-Saharan Africa. While countries in other regions have been more successful in reducing poverty and increasing the income share of the poor, there is no conclusive evidence that PRSP implementation has played a role in shaping these outcomes.
Macroeconomic Effects of Reforms on Three Diverse Oil Exporters: Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the UK
We build and estimate open economy two-bloc DSGE models to study the transmission and impact of shocks in Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom. After accounting for country-specific fiscal and monetary sectors, we estimate their key policy and structural parameters. Our findings suggest that not only has output responded differently to shocks due to differing levels of diversification and structural and policy settings, but also the responses to fiscal consolidation differ: Russia would benefit from a smaller state foot-print, while in Saudi Arabia, unless this is accompanied by structural reforms that remove rigidities, output would fall. We also find that lower oil prices need not be bad news given more oil-intensive production structures. However, lower oil prices have hurt these oil producers as their public finances depend heavily on oil, among other factors. Productivity gains accompanied by ambitious structural reforms, along with fiscal and monetary reforms could support these economies to achieve better outcomes when oil prices fall, including via diversifying exports.
Indexing Structural Distortion: Sectoral Productivity, Structural Change and Growth
This paper proposes a new index of sectoral labor distortion using employment and valueadded shares. We show that this index is highly correlated with growth both crosssectionally and over time. We also use it to compare the degree of distortion among countries and identify sectors where the potential payoffs in terms of growth from reforms could be large. The regression analysis in the paper shows that education and various structural reforms have potential to improve the efficiency of sectoral labor allocation.
Haiti
This Selected Issues paper examines opportunities and challenges for growth in Haiti. Achieving a sustained increase in living standards in Haiti will require deep-seated reforms across a range of areas. Diversifying the export base is needed to cushion the impact of severe shocks that have reduced per capita income and prevented a sustained increase in the capital stock. Integration into global-value chains would also allow Haiti to take advantage of its proximity to the U.S. market and favorable trade preferences to generate employment, spur the creation of human capital, and allow Haiti to begin climbing the value added chain.
Islamic Republic of Mauritania
Volatile commodity prices and a tightly managed exchange rate (ER) have led to boom and bust cycles with significant impacts on the public and financial sectors. While the previous Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement (December 2017—March 2021) has helped maintain macroeconomic stability, the pandemic has delayed structural reform implementation and widened the gap to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition, surging international commodity prices since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine have deteriorated the external and fiscal balances and led to inflationary pressures and food insecurity. In March 2021, the authorities requested a successor arrangement to support accelerated implementation of their national development strategy, help increase social and infrastructure spending, and improve governance and the business environment.
Morocco
This Selected Issues paper examines the distributional effects of tax reforms in Morocco. Overall, the performance of Morocco’s tax system is satisfactory, but there is scope to strengthen it and make it more equitable and less distortive. Morocco would benefit from a comprehensive and well explained tax reform strategy aiming to reduce inequality and boost growth. For this, a recommended tax reform package should combine several key components, for example, reducing tax exemptions, raising property tax, and lowering corporate tax rates. At the same time, the targeting of social programs should be strengthened. Such a reform approach would protect the most vulnerable and help broaden the tax base, remove tax distortions, and better share the tax burden.
Climate Change and Society
Climate change is one of today's most important issues, presenting an intellectual challenge to the natural and social sciences. While there has been progress in natural science understanding of climate change, social science research has not been as fully developed. This collection of essays breaks new theoretical and empirical ground by presenting climate change as a thoroughly social phenomenon, embedded in our institutions and cultural practices.
Islamic Republic of Mauritania
Economic performance in 2023 has been broadly positive, with decreasing inflation and a narrowing current account deficit, although real GDP growth slowed somewhat. Still, challenges related to infrastructure, governance, vulnerability to economic shocks, and limited economic diversification constrain Mauritania’s economic development. While the political situation appears stable, security risks persist, especially in the Sahel region. Additionally, frequent and severe climate-related disasters create large adaptation needs, though opportunities for boosting clean energy exist.
