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In 1978, China embarked on a gradual but far-reaching reform of its economic system. This paper focuses on the achievements so far in reforming the financial sector, the legal framework for financial transactions, the payments system, and the monetary policy and foreign exchange system. It also analyzes the tasks ahead to achieve the goals set in these areas for the year 2000.
Central banks and other public financial institutions act as agents of fiscal policy in many countries. Their "quasi-fiscal" operations and activities can affect the overall public sector balance without affecting the budget deficit as conventionally measured, may also have important allocative effects, and increase the effective size of the public sector. This paper analyzes the macroeconomic and financial effects of such quasi-fiscal activities, as well as the taxes, subsidies, and other expenditures that such activities introduce outside the budget. Measurement and accounting issues are addressed, and policy recommendations are offered.
This paper seeks to draw lessons from the IMF’s experience in handling financial crises around the globe over the past ten years that are relevant to the challenges faced by countries in Latin America, especially in the wake of the recent crisis in Argentina. Experience suggests that there is no quick or easy fix in the face of a wide-ranging crisis involving both acute external financing pressures and rapidly changing asset prices that undermine financial stability and household and corporate balance sheets. In the end, effective solutions depend on developing a comprehensive strategy combining the full range of fiscal, monetary, financial system, and debt policy instruments. Recent experience with crises has had important implications for the IMF’s work in assessing crisis vulnerabilities. IMF surveillance work has been strengthened and a more objective framework has been developed for assessing debt sustainability, and this approach continues to be refined.
This paper identifies five key issues that are important for the continued efforts to tackle gender inequality: (i) gender inequality needs to be distinguished from gender gaps. Not all gender gaps necessarily reflect gender inequality as some gender gaps are not driven by the lack of equal rights, responsibilities and opportunities bywomen and girls, and this has important implications on policy designs to address gender inequity. However, the literature has paid little attention to this issue, often using gender inequality and gender gaps interchangeably; (ii) the evolving focus of gender inequality suggests there is still a long way to go to fully address gender inequality. Particularly g...
The third stage of European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) was implemented in January 1999 against the specter of persistently high unemployment in many of the participating countries. While the high European unemployment has received considerable attention, this new IMF staff study analyzes an equally important issue: the extent of regional unemployment disparities in certain countries. The paper focuses on large and persistent differences in regional unemployment rates within several European countries. The paper includes detailed case studies of two euro area countries where regional disparities in unemployment are striking- Italy and Spain. The studies emphasize that wages are unresponsive to local labor market conditions.
This paper examines the experience of implementing indirect instruments of monetary policy. The experiences of country studies illustrate the variety of circumstances under which indirect instruments of monetary policy have been introduced. Case Studies are presented for Chile, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Mexico, New Zealand, and Poland.
Achieving gender equality remains a significant challenge, that has only deepened with the on-set of the COVID-19 pandemic. Gender budgeting (GB) can help promote gender equality by applying a gender perspective to fiscal policies and the budget process. This paper takes stock of GB practices in G20 countries and benchmarks country performance using a GB index and data gathered from an IMF survey. All G20 countries have enacted gender focused fiscal policies but the public financial management (PFM) tools to operationalize these policies are far less established. We find that notwithstanding heterogeneity across countries, the average G20 level of GB practice is relatively low. More progress...
The striking turnaround in the Netherlands economic performance over the past decade and a half has attracted widespread attention. Emerging from deep recession and high unemployment in the early 1980s, the economy shifted to a pace of growth more rapid than that in neighboring economies, and posted a rise in employment close to that in the United States. However, a number of important problems remain to be tackled to further strengthen economic performance in the Netherlands. The material presented in this paper was originally prepared as background for discussions in the IMF Executive Board and takes account of developments through March 1999.
Over the past two decades, sub-Saharan Africa has lagged behind other regions in economic performance. The important overall indicators of performance, however, mask wide differences among countries. On the whole, countries that effectively implemented comprehensive adjustment and reform programs showed better results. Their experiences demonstrate that an expansion in private saving and investment is key to achieving gains in real per capita GDP. The four papers included in this publication provide a cross country analysis that assesses empirically the role of publlic policies in stimulating private saving and investment in the region in 1986-92 and describe the adjustment experiences of Ghana (1983-91), Senegal (1978-1993), and Uganda (1987-94).
The unequal treatment of women in the law is one of the most visible forms of gender inequality. Prevalent legal constraints on the basis of gender prevent women, and thereby economies, from reaching their true potential. In this regard, this paper (i) documents the evolution of gender discriminatory laws around the globe, and (ii) sheds light on the role of legal gender equality in income convergence across countries. It shows that despite the remarkable progress toward gender equality in the law over the last five decades, the legal environment across the world is still far from providing a level playing field for women. Moreover, cross-country gaps in gender discriminatory laws have persi...