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Brazil is at crossroads, emerging slowly from a historic recession that was preceded by a huge economic boom. Reasons for the historic bust following a boom are manifold. Policy mistakes were an important contributory factor, and included the pursuit of countercyclical policies, introduced to deal with the effects of the global financial crisis, beyond the point where they were helpful. More fundamentally, it reflects longstanding structural weaknesses plaguing the economy, that also help explain Brazil’s uninspiring growth performance over the past four decades.
The economy is still in its deepest recession in decades, partly the result of the failure of past policies. The recession has been aggravated by a political crisis, which had, until recently, paralyzed policymaking and further damaged confidence. President Rousseff was impeached for responsibility crimes related to fiscal practices on August 31, and the government that took office in May will remain in charge until January 1st, 2019. Markets have responded positively to the new government’s reform agenda, bolstering asset prices and confidence and helping the country ride a positive wave of sentiment toward emerging economies. However, while some high-frequency indicators suggest the recession may be nearing its end, the implementation of much-needed reforms to durably restore policy credibility is subject to risks.
The reform of energy subsidies is an important but challenging issue for sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. There is a relatively large theoretical and empirical literature on this issue. While this paper relies on that literature, too, it tailors its discussion to SSA countries to respond to the following questions: Why it is important to reduce energy subsidies? What are the difficulties involved in energy subsidy reform? How best can a subsidy reform be implemented? This paper uses various sources of information on SSA countries: quantitative assessments, surveys, and individual (but standardized) case studies.
The December 2015 IMF Research Bulletin features a sampling of key research from the IMF. The Research Summaries in this issue look at “The Impact of Deflation and Lowflation on Fiscal Aggregates (Nicolas End, Sampawende J.-A. Tapsoba, Gilbert Terrier, and Renaud Duplay); and “Oil Exporters at the Crossroads: It Is High Time to Diversify” (Reda Cherif and Fuad Hasanov). Mahvash Saeed Qureshi provides an overview of the fifth Lindau Meeting in Economics in “Meeting the Nobel Giants.” In the Q&A column on “Seven Questions on Financial Frictions and the Sources of the Business Cycle, Marzie Taheri Sanjani looks at the driving forces of the business cycle and macroeconomic models. The top-viewed articles in 2014 from the IMF Economic Review are highlighted, along with recent IMF Working Papers, Staff Discussion Notes, and IMF publications.
This supplement presents country case studies reviewing country experiences with managing wage bill pressures, which are the basis for the compensation and employment reform lessons identified in the main paper. The selection of countries for the case studies reflects past studies carried out by either the IMF or the World Bank in the context of technical assistance or bilateral surveillance (Table 1). These studies provide important insights into the different sources of wage bill pressures as well as the reform challenges governments have faced when addressing these pressures over the short and medium term. The studies cover 20 countries, including five advanced economies, six countries fr...
A notable group of social scientists explore the political economy of good governance and how it relates to performance management, the influence of political parties, education and health issues in developing countries, the economic performance of transition economies, and the effects of climate on poverty.
The September 2015 issue of the IMF Research Bulletin covers a range of research topics. The Research Summaries featured in this issue are “Lower for Longer: Neutral Rates in the United States” (Andrea Pescatori and Jarkko Turunen) and “Economic Principles for Resource Revenue Management” (Anthony J. Venables and Samuel Wills). The Q&A article looks at “Seven Questions on Financing for Development” (Amadou Sy) and the global development agenda. The issue also includes special announcements on the 2015 Annual Research Conference and the 2015 IMF Annual Report, as well as new IMF publications. Readers will also find a link to a top-viewed article from the “IMF Economic Review”—the IMF’s official research journal.
Building a capable public service is fundamental to postconflict state building. Yet in postconflict settings, short-term pressures often conflict with this longer-term objective. To ensure peace and stabilize fragile coalitions, the imperative for political elites to hand out public jobs and better pay to constituents dominates merit. Donor-financed projects that rely on technical assistants and parallel structures, rather than on government systems, are often the primary vehicle for meeting pressing service delivery needs. What, then, is a workable approach to rebuilding public services postconflict?Paths between Peace and Public Service seeks to answer this question by comparing public se...
This Companion title explores the highly controversial subject of Public-Private Partnerships; providing a comprehensive volume of information for those responsible for understanding, critiquing and advancing this model. With sections devoted to legal aspects, institutional economics perspectives, finance and accountability - the editors draw together an impressive range of international contributors.
This paper looks at the following important issues pertaining to the economy of Costa Rica: micro-financial linkages, financial sector vulnerabilities, monetary policy stance, financial deepening in Costa Rica, financial inclusion in Costa Rica, recent fiscal developments and medium-term sustainability, and female labor force participation in Costa Rica. This paper discusses linkages between the Costa Rican real economy and financial sector. Although increasingly diversified, the Costa Rican financial system is centered on banking intermediation. The banking system is highly segmented and heavily dollarized. To assess the adequacy of the current monetary policy stance, this paper estimates the neutral monetary policy interest rate.