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Macroeconomic Management
Macroeconomic Management: Programs and Policies edited by Mohsin S. Khan, Saleh M. Nsouli, and Chorng-Huey Wong. 2002. x + 346 pp. ISBN 1-58906-094-6 Since its founding in 1964, the IMF Institute has provided macroeconomic management training to over 20,000 officials from almost all of the International Monetary Fund's 183 member countries-more than 13,000 at IMF headquarters in Washington, and about 8,000 overseas. This volume, edited by Mohsin S. Khan, Saleh M. Nsouli, and Chorng-Huey Wong-respectively Director, Deputy Director, and Senior Advisor in the IMF Institute-compiles some of the analysis that the Institute uses in its macroeconomic training to address key questions that policymakers face in managing their national economies. The chapters, by IMF staff and external economists, cover salient topics in monetary, fiscal, and exchange rate management and show that there are no definitive prescriptions for effective economic policymaking, but rather a range of options, and that any course of policy action has explicit pros and cons.
Islamic Banking
Islamic banks are prohibited from charging or paying interest, and thus can operate only on the basis of profit-sharing arrangements. This paper provides a brief survey of the theory and practice of Islamic banking. It covers developments in Islamic banking since the mid-1970s, how such banks operate, and the analytical underpinnings of a financial system based on Islamic principles. Finally, the future of Islamic banking is assessed.
Why is China Growing so Fast?
China has been growing at a spectacular rate in recent years, enabling per capita incomes to almost quadruple in only the last decade and a half This paper identifies the sources of economic growth in China from 1953 to 1994. While capital accumulation played an important role in China’s economic growth throughout the period, it is basically the sharp and sustained increase in productivity that accounts for the unprecedented economic growth observed during the reform period. The productivity gains largely reflect market-oriented reforms, especially the expansion of the nonstate sector, as well as China’s “open door” policy that brought about a dramatic expansion in foreign trade and foreign direct investment.
Foreign Currency Deposits and the Demand for Money in Developing Countries
This paper examines the relative demands for domestic and foreign currency deposits by residents of developing countries. A dynamic currency substitution model that incorporates forward-looking rational expectations is formulated and then estimated for a group of ten developing countries. The results indicate that the foreign rate of interest and the expected rate of depreciation of the parallel market exchange rate are important factors in the choice between holding domestic money or switching to foreign currency deposits held abroad. From an empirical standpoint, the forward-looking framework adopted here also turns out to be superior to the conventional currency-substitution model.
The Romanian Economic Reform Program
With the start of the process of its transition to a market economy in early 1990, Romania joined the ranks of other reforming Eastern European countries. At the starting point of its reform program, however, Romania was in a deep economic and institutional crisis and had no experience in even modest attempts to reform its economy. This paper outlines the main characteristics of the Romanian economic system before the reform, and presents the evolution of the reform program, as well as its achievements in the first year or so since it was launched.
Africa
This paper examines the experience of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to answer the question of whether the region is at a turning point in its economic fortunes. The improvement in growth reflects in part a rise in the utilization of existing capacity. To be sustained, however, a high rate of growth will require an increase in investment rates and/or an increase in total factor productivity—i.e., an improvement in the technological, political, administrative and economic factors that raise the rate of return on both capital and labor. The close link between investment and growth in developing countries over the long term is evident in the empirical growth literature. For developing countries in general, the elasticity of growth with respect to the investment/GDP ratio has been found to lie within the range of 0.3–0.5. Although increasing investment is crucial, action is also needed in many complementary areas in order to raise productivity and growth.
Growth-Oriented Adjustment Programs
This volume presents the proceedings of a symposium that was orgainzed jointly by the IMF and the World Bank and held in Washington, D.C. The symposium was organized by Vittorio Corbo, Morris Goldstein, and Mohsin Khan. The papers review the design of, and the economic rationale behind, adjustment programs and examine the best means of helping developing countries achieve balance of payments stability with sustainable economic growth.
Effects of Slowdown in Industrial Countries on Growth in Non-Oil Developing Countries
One of the more important yet puzzling aspects of the recent global stagflation has been the rather surprising resiliency of growth rates of real income in non-oil developing countries during the 1973-80 period in the face of the marked slowdown of corresponding growth rates in the industrial world. The primary purpose of this paper is to shed some light on this phenomenon by examining the relationship between the rate of economic growth in the non-oil developing countries and that in the industrial countries over the past decade or so.
Exchange Rate Policy in Developing Countries
This paper addresses analytical aspects of exchange rate policy and emphasizes the relationship among exchange rate flexibility, financial discipline, and international competitiveness.
Macroeconomic Policies and Long-Term Growth
This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical aspects of the relationship between macroeconomic policies and the long-run rate of growth of GNP. The macroeconomic policies examined include fiscal policies, monetary and interest rate policies, external policies, and policies to reform the goods and labor markets, including adjustments of producer prices and wages. In general, the effects of these policies on growth operate directly or indirectly through their influence on investment in physical and human capital, and on factor productivity. The available empirical evidence confirms the effects of specific macroeconomic and financial policies on long-run growth.
