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The External Balance Assessment (EBA) Methodology
The External Balance Assessment (EBA) methodology has been developed by the IMF’s Research Department as a successor to the CGER methodology for assessing current accounts and exchange rates in a multilaterally consistent manner. Compared to other approaches, EBA emphasizes distinguishing between the positive empirical analysis and the normative assessment of current accounts and exchange rates, and highlights the roles of policies and policy distortions. This paper provides a comprehensive description and discussion of the 2013 version (“2.0”) of the EBA methodology, including areas for its further development.
The Level REER model in the External Balance Assessment (EBA) Methodology
This paper offers an empirical model of the drivers of the level of the Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER) that is now part of the IMF’s methodology for the assessment of external positions, including exchange rates. It constructs a measure of the level of the REER and it offers a panel regression that considers a large number of cross-sectional and time varying factors, guided by the extensive literature. Its main contribution is to enhance our understanding of the cross-sectional determinants of the level of the REER, while taking into account the time-series drivers. The framework accounts for the much larger cross-sectional variation of the level REER, and can better explain the time series variation of level REER when these are based on GDP-deflators rather than on consumer price indices. The latter suggest there may be merits to broadening the assessments to include such measures, although further analysis is required.
The Mechanics of a Strong Euro Area
Among member states, many structural weaknesses were exposed when economic performance declined significantly and financial markets became more discerning. This book focuses on the analytical underpinnings of real-time policy advice given to euro area policymakers during four cycles of the IMF’s annual Article IV consultations (2012–15) with euro area authorities.
Assessing Country Risk
Assessing country risk is a core component of surveillance at the IMF. It is conducted through a comprehensive architecture, covering both bilateral and multilateral dimensions. This note describes some of the approaches used internally by Fund staff to examine a wide array of systemic risks across advanced, emerging, and low-income economies. It provides a high-level view of the theory and methodologies employed, with an on-line companion guide providing more technical details of implementation. The guide will be updated as Fund staff’s methodologies for assessing country risk continue to evolve with experience and feedback. While the results of these approaches are not published by the IMF for market sensitivity reasons, they inform risk assessments featured in bilateral surveillance as well as in the IMF’s flagship publications on global surveillance.
Latin America
This paper documents developments in mortgage credit and the housing sector in Latin America over the past decade, and compares them with those of other emerging economies. In particular, it examines the real estate and mortgage markets to assess whether (i) growth in mortgage credit is excessive compared to long-term trends; (ii) trends in house prices reflect changes in economic fundamentals; and (iii) the extent to which household and banking sector vulnerabilities could lead to potential fragilities. Although data limitations hamper a rigorous analysis of trends, our analysis suggests that while there are no imminent misalignments in the real estate and mortgage sectors, they could emerge if current trends persist. Strengthening supervision and addressing data gaps is thus critical to ensure adequate monitoring of risks and vulnerabilities in these sectors.
Towards an Inclusive, Equitable and Sustainable National Pension System in Iraq
A pension system is at the heart of social protection. By ensuring income security for older persons and other vulnerable groups, it prevents poverty, reduces inequality, and facilitates consumption smoothing. A pension system also affects the working population’s labor market choices and has important fiscal implications. Iraq’s current pension system is highly fragmented, inequitable, and inefficient. First, it fails to provide adequate income protection to most of Iraqi’s old age population and other vulnerable groups, such as survivors and persons with disability. Second, the public sector pension is already putting substantial pressure on the budget and is potentially unsustainabl...
2014 Pilot External Sector Report
The IMF’s third Pilot External Sector Report (ESR) presents a multilaterally consistent assessment of the largest economies’ external sector positions and policies for 2013 and early 2014. The report integrates the analysis from the Fund’s bilateral and multilateral surveillance to provide a coherent assessment of exchange rates, current accounts, reserves, capital flows, and external balance sheets. Together with the Spillover Report and Article IV consultations (with their heightened focus on spillovers), this Report is part of a continuous effort to ensure the Fund is in a good position to address the possible effects of spillovers from members’ policies on global stability and monitor the stability of members’ external sectors in a comprehensive manner.
United Kingdom
United Kingdom: Selected Issues
External Liabilities and Crises
We examine the determinants of external crises, focusing on the role of foreign liabilities and their composition. Using a variety of statistical tools and comprehensive data spanning 1970-2011, we find that the ratio of net foreign liabilities (NFL) to GDP is a significant crisis predictor, and the more so when it exceeds 50 percent in absolute terms and 20 percent of the country-specific historical mean. This is primarily due to net external debt--the effect of net equity liabilities is weaker and net FDI liabilities seem if anything an offset factor. We also find that: i) breaking down net external debt into its gross asset and liability counterparts does not add significant explanatory power to crisis prediction; ii) the current account is a powerful predictor, either measured unconditionally or as deviations from conventionally estimated “norms” iii) foreign exchange reserves reduce the likelihood of crisis more than other foreign asset holdings; iv) a parsimonious probit containing those and a handful of other variables has good predictive performance in- and out-of-sample. The latter result stems largely from our focus on external crises stricto sensu.
