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Central banks are increasingly pondering whether to issue their own digital currencies to the general public, so-called retail central bank digital currency (CBDC). The majority of IMF member countries are actively evaluating CBDCs, with only a few having issued CBDCs or undertaken extensive pilots or tests. This paper shines the spotlight on the handful of countries at the frontier in the hope of identifying and sharing insights, lessons, and open questions for the benefit of the many countries following in their footsteps. Clearly, what can be gleaned from these experiences does not necessarily apply elsewhere. The sample of countries remains small and country circumstances differ widely. ...
This issue discusses economic developments in the Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (MENAP), which continue to reflect the diversity of conditions prevailing across the region. Most high-income oil exporters, primarily in the GCC, continue to record steady growth and solid economic and financial fundamentals, albeit with medium-term challenges that need to be addressed. In contrast, other countries—Iraq, Libya, and Syria—are mired in conflicts with not only humanitarian but also economic consequences. And yet other countries, mostly oil importers, are making continued but uneven progress in advancing their economic agendas, often in tandem with political transitions and amidst difficult social conditions. In most of these countries, without extensive economic and structural reforms, economic prospects for the medium term remain insufficient to reduce high unemployment and improve living standards.
Motivated by its rapid growth, this paper investigates how FinTech activities influence risk taking by financial intermediaries (FIs). In this context, this paper revisits an ongoing debate on the impact of competition on financial stability: on one side, it is argued that greater competition encourages greater risk taking (competition-fragility hypothesis), while the other side of the debate asserts that more competition can increase financial stability (competition-stability hypothesis). Using a curated databased covering over 10,000 FIs and global FinTech activities, we find a robust relationship whereby greater FinTech presence is associated with heightened risk taking by FIs, offering s...
This paper presents country experiences with reforms to strengthen regulatory oversight of the Islamic banking sector. Based on the selected country experiences, a number of important lessons and policy options can be drawn that have implications for the stable and sound development of Islamic banking. An enabling regulatory and institutional framework and a level playing field for conventional and Islamic banks is critical for the sound and stable growth of the Islamic banking industry. The country experiences also underscore the importance of providing an enabling framework while letting market forces determine the size of the industry.
This paper offers Algeria's recent experience with macroeconomic stabilization and systemic transformation from a centrally planned to a market economy. The analyses focuses on the period since 1994 when Algeria embarked on a comprehensive reform program that has benefitted from IMF support, first through a one-year Stand-by Arrangement, and from May 1995, through a three-year arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility. To better understand this experience, this paper provides some background information on Algeria's political history and economic developments during the period preceding the Stand-By arrangement.
This paper provides a critical survey of the literature on politico-institutional determinants of the government budget. We organize our discussion around two questions: Why did certain OECD countries, but not others, accumulate large public debts? Why did these fiscal imbalances appear in the last twenty years rather than sooner? We begin by discussing the “tax smoothing” model and conclude that this approach alone cannot provide complete answers to these questions. We then proceed to a discussion of political economy models, which we organize into six groups: (1) models based upon opportunistic policy makers and naive voters with “fiscal illusion”; (2) models of intergenerational redistributions; (3) models of debt as a strategic variable, linking the current government with the next one; (4) models of coalition governments; (5) models of geographically dispersed interests; and (6) models emphasizing the effects of budgetary institutions. We conclude by briefly discussing policy implications.
In accordance with Executive Board Decision No. 15106-(12/21), the Fund will publish on its external website a list of member countries whose Article IV consultations or mandatory financial stability assessments have been delayed by more than 18 months, as of December 15, 2019, since the expected deadline for conclusion.
This Selected Issues paper analyzes budget financing options and their potential macro-financial implications for Kuwait. With large financial buffers and low debt, Kuwait has substantial room to finance the emerging fiscal deficits. The financing strategy should be underpinned by sound institutional and legal reforms and geared toward the development of the domestic debt markets. A balanced mix of asset drawdown and borrowing from a diversified investor base (nonresidents, domestic banks and nonbank financial institutions) would help mitigate negative implications for the economy and develop the corporate debt market.
This book provides an interdisciplinary analysis of trade relations with the Middle East and Arab countries from the perspectives of law, business, policy and culture in the Middle East and the Arab world and their interaction with the wider world, particularly Western countries. The rapidly evolving economy of the Middle East and the Arab region is undergoing significant change, and establishing modern foreign ownership law, robust company, business and investment regulations, modern legal professions while keeping its basic traditional and Islamic principles. This book covers a number of important theoretical and practical aspects of commercial and trade relationships and law. It examines ...