You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
This paper introduces a new database of financial reforms, covering 91 economies over 1973–2005. It describes the content of the database, the information sources utilized, and the coding rules used to create an index of financial reform. It also compares the database with other measures of financial liberalization, provides descriptive statistics, and discusses some possible applications. The database provides a multi-faceted measure of reform, covering seven aspects of financial sector policy. Along each dimension the database provides a graded (rather than a binary) score, and allows for reversals.
Assessments of exchange rate misalignments and external imbalances for low-income countries are challenging because methodologies developed for advanced and emerging economies cannot be automatically applied to poorer nations. This paper uses a large database, unique in the set of indicators and number of countries it covers, to estimate the relationship in low-income countries between a set of fundamentals in the medium to long term and the real effective exchange rate, the current account, and the net external assets position.
The Difficult Construction of European Banking Union examines the political, legal and economic issues surrounding the lacunae and design faults of European Banking Union and its problematic operation. The volume brings together the work of sixteen scholars focused on the diverse debates surrounding the construction and operation of Banking Union (BU), and its necessary reform. BU represents one of the most important developments in European integration since the launch of Monetary Union. Furthermore, the design of the BU agreed between 2012 and 2014 was a messy compromise among EU member states. It is not surprising then that BU has sparked a lively academic debate and triggered an ever-gro...
This paper presents a simultaneous assessment of the relationship between economic performance and three groups of economic reforms: domestic finance, trade, and the capital account. Among these, domestic financial reforms, and trade reforms, are robustly associated with economic growth, but only in middle-income countries. In contrast, we do not find any systematic positive relationship between capital account liberalization and economic growth. Moreover, the effect of domestic financial reforms on economic growth in middle-income countries is explained by improvements in measured aggregate TFP growth, not by higher aggregate investment. We present evidence that variation in the quality of property rights helps explain the heterogeneity of the effectiveness of financial and trade reforms in developing countries. The evidence suggests that sufficiently developed property rights are a precondition for reaping the benefits of economic reform. Our results are robust to endogeneity bias and a number of alternative specifications.
Corporate sector vulnerabilities have been a central policy topic since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we analyze some 17,000 publicly listed firms in a sample of 24 countries, and assess their ability to withstand shocks induced by the pandemic to their liquidity, viability and solvency. For this purpose, we develop novel multi-factor sensitivity analysis and dynamic scenario-based stress test techniques to assess the impact of shocks on firm’s ability to service their debt, and on their liquidity and solvency positions. Applying the October 2020 WEO baseline and adverse scenarios, we find that a large share of publicly-listed firms become vulnerable as a result of th...
Do financial sector reforms necessarily result in expansion of credit to the private sector? How does bank ownership affect the availability of credit to the private sector? Empirical evidence is somewhat mixed on these issues. We use the Indian experience with liberalization of the financial sector to inform this debate. Using bank-level data from 1991-2007, we ask whether public and private banks deployed resources freed up by reduced state preemption to increase credit to the private sector. We find that even after liberalization, public banks allocated a larger share of their assets to government securities than did private banks. Crucially, we also find that public banks were more responsive in allocating relatively more resources to finance the fiscal deficit even during periods when state pre-emption (measured in terms of the requirement to hold government securities as a share of assets) formally declined. These findings suggest that in developing countries, where alternative channels of financing may be limited, government ownership of banks, combined with high fiscal deficits, may limit the gains from financial liberalization.
The Algerian economy was still emerging from the Covid pandemic when it was hit by spillovers from Russia’s war in Ukraine and by recurrent droughts. These shocks fueled inflation while high international hydrocarbon prices also boosted government revenue and exports. Algeria’s economy likely recorded a robust growth in 2023 and the external position remained solid, with a current account surplus for the second year in a row and further accumulation of international reserves. Inflation remains elevated and could become entrenched. The 2023–24 budgets aim at supporting the purchasing power of households but risk depleting the buffers that protect the budget from revenue volatility. Structural reforms are advancing with the enactment of the Monetary and Banking law and the implementation of program budgeting and the 2022 Investment Law. Investment in digitalization would strengthen governance and transparency, reduce corruption risks, and improve service delivery.
Introduction -- Instability -- Taking the money market seriously -- Money creation and market failure -- Banking in theory and reality -- Panics and the macroeconomy -- Design alternatives -- A monetary thought experiment -- The limits of risk constraints -- Public support and subsidized finance -- The public-private partnership -- Money and sovereignty -- A more detailed blueprint -- Rethinking financial reform
The June issue of the IMF Research Bulletin looks at the role of IMF programs and capacity building in fostering structural reforms and the economics of Arab countries undergoing political transitions. The Q&A analyzes the neutral interest rate through the experiences of several Latin American countries. The Research Bulletin also includes its regular features: a listing of IMF Working Papers and Staff Discussion Notes, information on the forthcoming IMF Economic Review and the Fourteenth Jacques Polack Annual Research Conference, and recommended readings from IMF Publications.
In keeping with the well-known Senegalese tradition of storytelling, this book aims to bring together a broad range of viewpoints from international experience to inform the design and implementation of Senegal’s plan to navigate the political economy of reform to move Senegal to a higher-growth path. It addresses the issue of how to overcome the political economy constraints on reforms, drawing on policy lessons from successful countries that have managed to overcome some of these obstacles.