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Abstract: Accelerating economic growth in Central America, Panama and the Dominican Republic (CAPDR) remains an elusive task. While the region performed relatively well in the post-global financial crisis period, over the last five years obstacles to growth have become more evident and new challenges have emerged. In response, the region has strengthened macro-financial frameworks but more progress will be required to pave the way to sustained growth and prosperity. This book considers the structural factors underlying the region’s growth outlook and assesses its macroeconomic and financial challenges to help shape the policy agenda going forward. The book first identifies the structural d...
This is the sixth of a series of papers that are being written as part of a project to estimate a small quarterly Global Projection Model (GPM). The GPM project is designed to improve the toolkit to which economists have access for studying both own-country and cross-country linkages. In this paper, we add three more regions and make a number of other changes to a previously estimated small quarterly projection model of the US, euro area, and Japanese economies. The model is estimated with Bayesian techniques, which provide a very efficient way of imposing restrictions to produce both plausible dynamics and sensible forecasting properties.
This paper studies economic and financial spillovers from the euro area to Poland in a two-country semi-structural model. The model incorporates various channels of macrofinancial linkages and cross-border spillovers. We parameterize the model through an extensive calibration process, and provide a wide range of model properties and evaluation exercises. Simulation results suggest a prominent role of foreign demand shocks (euro area and global) in driving Poland’s output, inflation and interest rate dynamics, particularly in recent years. Our model also has the capability for medium-term conditional forecasting and policy analysis.
This paper discusses interlinkages between Poland and the euro zone using a simple and agnostic econometric approach. Specifically, we estimate a trend-cycle VAR model using data for real and nominal variables, imposing powerful but uncontroversial assumptions that allow us to identify how external factors affect the evolution of business cycles in Poland in the period 1999-2012. Our results suggest that developments in the euro zone can explain about 50 percent of poland’s output and interest rate business cycle variance and about 25 percent of the variance of inflation.
Estimates of potential output are an important ingredient of structured forecasting and policy analysis. Using information on consensus forecasts, this paper extends the multivariate filter developed by Benes and others (2010). Although the estimates in real time are more robust relative to those of naïve statistical filters, there is still significant uncertainty surrounding the estimates. The paper presents estimates for 16 countries and provides an example of how the filtered estimates at the end of the sample period can be improved with additional information.
The paper presents a global model with systemic and country risks, as well as commodity prices.We show that systemic risk shocks have an important impact on world economic activity, with the busts in world output gap corresponding to unobserved systemic risk associated with major financial events. In addition, systemic risk shocks are shown to be important drivers of output gaps while country risk premium shocks can have important effects on the trade balance. Commodity prices, in particular the price of oil, are shown to be demand driven. The model performs well at one- and four-quarter horizons compared to a survey of analysts' forecasts. In addition, systemic risk shocks explain a large share of the forecast variance for the world output gap, country output gaps, the price of oil, and country risk premiums. The importance of systemic risk shocks lends support for financial surveillance with a systemic focus.
After several decades of increasing global economic integration, the world is facing the risk of policy-driven geoeconomic fragmentation (GEF). This note explores the ramifications. It identifies multiple channels through which the benefits of globalization were earlier transmitted, and along which, conversely, the costs of GEF are likely to fall, including trade, migration, capital flows, technology diffusion and the provision of global public goods. It explores the consequences of GEF for the international monetary system and the global financial safety net. Finally, it suggests a pragmatic path forward for preserving the benefits of global integration and multilateralism
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...
We extend the Global Projection Model (GPM) to include a separate block for China. China plays an important role in shaping global economic outcomes, given its sheer size and trade integration with other key economies, its demand for commodities, and its policies. Also, the Chinese economy has several unique features which differentiate it from the rest of emerging Asia. These features (the use of multiple monetary-policy instruments and a managed-floating exchange-rate policy) mean that a separate treatment of China allows for a better consideration of China, as well as how the rest of emerging Asia behaves.
This paper presents estimates of potential output for all Central American economies. Our findings are that potential output growth has declined in recent years in most economies of Central America. Lower capital accumulation and TFP growth are accounting for most of this decline. Apart from Costa Rica, there are no indications of significant economic slack in 2015 in Central America. Looking forward, potential growth in most Central American economies is expected to continue at an average of 4 percent in the medium-term due to structural constraints to capital and employment growth, and low TFP growth. Increasing potential growth, thus, should be a policy priority and structural reforms must be directed at improving business conditions, product and labor markets, and enhancing the capacity for innovation.