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Peru stands out among Latin American countries as an example of successful economic reforms over the past decade. This comprehensive look at Peru's economy traces that country's journey from a debt crisis in the 1980s to having buffers in place that allowed it to emerge unscathed from the global financial crisis. The book examines the steps Peru undertook to achieve these results and extracts lessons to be learned. Chapters are written by IMF staff and Peruvian economists.
Beginning with an exploration of the origins and evolution of sustainable development and finance, this book continues with sections on public and private sector finance and investment for sustainable development, climate finance, and the emerging ‘blue’ economy. A concluding chapter incorporates the recommendations for sustainable finance going forward in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and escalating global environmental crisis.
A vigorous call for rethinking the field of business history. Business history needs a shake-up, Philip Scranton and Patrick Fridenson argue, as many businesses go global and cultural contexts become critical. Reimagining Business History prods practitioners to take new approaches to entrepreneurial intentions, company scale, corporate strategies, local infrastructure, employee well-being, use of resources, and long-term environmental consequences. During the past half century, the history of American business became an unusually active and rewarding field of scholarship, partly because of the primacy of postwar American capital, at home and abroad, and the rise of a consumer culture but als...
Emerging markets have experienced a sizeable decline in their neutral real interest rates until recently. In this paper we try to identify the main factors that contributed to it, with a focus on Brazil. We estimate an interval for Brazil’s time-varying neutral rate based on a range of structural and econometric models. We assess the implications of incorrectly estimating a time-varying neutral rate using a small structural model with a simple monetary policy instrument rule. We find that policy prescriptions are very different when facing uncertainty of neutral rate and of output gap. Our result contrasts sharply with Orphanides (2002), suggesting that the best response to neutral rate uncertainty is to ensure policy remains highly sensitive to inflation and output variations.
The enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Law in 2013, which came into force in 2015, was a major achievement toward strengthening Paraguay’s fiscal framework. Its implementation has nonetheless been complex, with slippages occurring in the first year of its enactment. Concerns have also emerged about the current design of the nominal balance rule, which is perceived as excessively rigid. Given the high volatility of fiscal revenues, the rule translates into an unstable path of public expenditure and does not provide sufficient space for countercyclical policies. Paraguay’s tight fiscal deficit ceiling may also constrain capital expenditure plans, possibly to the detriment of overall economic development needs. The authorities have decided to replace the nominal balance rule with a structural balance rule, starting in 2019, to achieve a more stable path of public expenditure and better link it to the medium-term objectives of fiscal policy. The government is also considering modifications of the Fiscal Responsibility Law in order to enhance public investment without damaging the credibility of the rule-based framework.
Government compensation and employment policies are important for the efficient delivery of public services which are crucial for the functioning of economies and the general prosperity of societies. On average, spending on the wage bill absorbs around one-fifth of total spending. Cross-country variation in wage spending reflects, in part, national choices about the government’s role in priority sectors, as well as variations in the level of economic development and resource constraints.
This paper discusses a comprehensive strategy for implementing Mexico’s climate mitigation commitments. Progressively increasing carbon prices from current levels of US$3 per ton to US$75 per ton by 2030 would achieve Mexico’s mitigation pledges, while raising annual revenues of 1.8 percent of GDP and cumulatively averting 11,600 deaths from local air pollution. The carbon price would raise fossil fuel and electricity prices, imposing burdens of 2.7 percent of consumption on the average Mexican household. However, recycling carbon pricing revenues would offset most of this burden, and targeted transfers could make the reform pro-poor and pro-equity. Additionally, the economic efficiency ...
Heating Up in the South, Cooler in the North broadly describes the economic scene for the Western Hemisphere. The report emphasizes how a mixed environment--with slow recovery in the United States and other advanced economies, but strength in Asia--differently shapes the outlooks for the diverse economies of Latin America and the Caribbean. This issue also focuses on financial issues in Latin America, with a chapter on the challenges of allowing credit to expand safely, without creating excessive risks, and a chapter that looks at macroprudential financial policies--topics especially important in today's context of low global interest rates and capital flows to emerging economies. The final chapter turns to Caribbean economies, exploring the drivers, and obstacles, that affect their growth.
The Summer 2017 issue of the IMF Research Bulletin highlights new research such as recent IMF Working Papers and Staff Discussion Notes. The Research Summaries are “Structural Reform Packages, Sequencing, and the Informal Economy (by Zsuzsa Munkacsi and Magnus Saxegaard) and “A Broken Social Contract, Not High Inequality Led to the Arab Spring” (by Shantayanan Devarajan and Elena Ianchovichina). The Q&A section features “Seven Questions on Fintech” (by Tommaso Mancini-Griffoli). The Bulletin also includes information on recommended titles from IMF Publications and the latest articles from the IMF Economic Review.
This Selected Issues paper analyzes pace of economic growth for Brazil. Moderating activity and stubbornly elevated inflation since 2010 have led to a reevaluation of Brazil’s long-term potential growth rate. Growth accounting suggests that potential growth is probably lower than was widely assumed in recent years and now stands at about 31⁄2 percent. The demographic dividend of a rapidly expanding labor force is fading and further structural declines in unemployment are likely to be limited. Potential growth will rely more on the pace of capital deepening and productivity growth. Lifting both may require successful implementation of the infrastructure investment program, higher domestic saving, and structural reforms.