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Labor Market Issues in the Caribbean
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 46

Labor Market Issues in the Caribbean

The paper examines the determinants of employment growth, drawing on data available across a sample of Caribbean countries. To that end, the paper analyzes estimates of the employment-output elasticity and the response of employment growth to major sources of labor market determinants, in the long and short run. The main determinants of employment include government investment and private sector credit, while the major determinants of external performance are real effective exchange rate, the price of major exporting commodities, the number of tourists, and growth in major trading partners. The paper concludes with a menu of policy recommendations and structural reforms towards sustaining high employment growth and higher living standards in the Caribbean.

Unleashing Growth and Strengthening Resilience in the Caribbean
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 378

Unleashing Growth and Strengthening Resilience in the Caribbean

This book provides a diagnosis of the central economic and financial challenges facing Caribbean policymakers and offers broad policy recommendations for promoting a sustained and inclusive increase in economic well-being. The analysis highlights the need for Caribbean economies to make a concerted effort to break the feedback loops between weak macroeconomic fundamentals, notably pertaining to fiscal positions and financial sector strains, and structural impediments, such as high electricity costs, limited financial deepening, violent crime, and brain drain, which have depressed private investment and growth. A recurring theme in the book is the need for greater regional coordination in fin...

The Role of Structural Fiscal Policy on Female Labor Force Participation in OECD Countries
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 51

The Role of Structural Fiscal Policy on Female Labor Force Participation in OECD Countries

This paper examines the role of structural fiscal policies to promote female labor force participation and reduce gender gaps in labor markets in 26 OECD countries from 2000 to 2019. As both female labor force participation and many explanatory/control variables clearly exhibit non-stationarity (potentially leading to spurious regression results), we employ a panel vector error-correction model, in contrast with most previous empirical studies on this matter. Our analyses confirm statistically significant positive impacts of government spending on (1) early childcare and education, (2) active labor market programs, and (3) unemployment benefits, all of which would help encourage women to enter the labor force, while (4) an increase in relative tax rate on second earner could have negative impact on female labor force participation.

Suriname
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 36

Suriname

This Selected Issues Paper carries out an empirical analysis of the effects of policies and external shocks on economic activity in Suriname. The estimates are broadly consistent with prior empirical findings. The results reveal a strong contemporaneous correlation between credit and demand, while the empirical link between exports and demand seems slightly weaker. The results for import demand point to a strong correlation between imports and exports. The export variable is highly significant and explains a large fraction of the total variation in imports. An increase in exports of 1 percent is associated with a 0.61 percent increase in imports.

Sudan
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 41

Sudan

This Selected Issues paper on Sudan provides a first stock-taking of the scale, main transmission channels and potential costs of poor governance and corruption in Sudan and offers preliminary recommendations. A large body of literature and country analyses confirm that weak governance and corruption undermine economic growth, amplify income inequality and erode public trust in the institutions. According to international agencies and existing literature, Sudan has scored very poorly on compliance with rule of law best practices in the past. Effective implementation of preventive measures is important; particularly in relation to politically exposed persons. Transparency on beneficial ownership of legal persons and arrangements to prevent their misuse for laundering the proceeds of corruption are necessary. Transparency, accountability, and comprehensive communication should be the backbone of governance and anti-corruption reforms in each sector. Rationalizing tax exemptions and phasing out tax holidays would strengthen governance while boosting fiscal revenues.

Chad: Request for a Three-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Chad
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 113

Chad: Request for a Three-Year Arrangement Under the Extended Credit Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Chad

The COVID-19 pandemic, the volatility in oil prices, heightened insecurity, and a looming food crisis due to climate change have severely stressed an already vulnerable Chadian economy. The two Rapid Credit Facility (RCF) disbursements in April and July 2020 allowed Chad to meet its immediate financing and urgent balance of payment needs in the early stages of the pandemic. The authorities have requested Fund assistance under the ECF to support their post-COVID recovery and their plan to reduce debt vulnerabilities through a combination of a debt workout and a multi-year fiscal consolidation program. However, due to the death of the president following a resurgence of fighting with rebel groups in April and the delayed delivery of donor support, the treasury situation has become extremely tight, threatening social stability.

Gendered Taxes: The Interaction of Tax Policy with Gender Equality
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 54

Gendered Taxes: The Interaction of Tax Policy with Gender Equality

This paper provides an overview of the relation between tax policy and gender equality, covering labor, capital and wealth, as well as consumption taxes. It considers implicit and explicit gender biases and corrective taxation. On labor taxes, we discuss the well-established findings on female labor supply and present new empirical work on the impact of household taxation. We also analyze the impact of progressivity on pay gaps and labor supply. On capital and wealth taxation, we discuss the implications of lower effective capital income taxation on the personal income tax burden gap across genders. We show that countries with relatively low female shares of capital income and wealth also tend to tax property and inheritances particularly lightly. On consumption taxes, we cover taxes on female hygiene products and excise taxes, which we assess in relation to externalities and differences in consumption patterns across genders.

Gender and Business Cycles
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 22

Gender and Business Cycles

This note reviews the literature on the complex relationship between gender and business cycles. It focuses on nuanced patterns that challenge the notion of gender neutrality in economic fluctuations. The note also analyzes dimensions, such as unemployment, income risk, hours worked, and responses to monetary and fiscal policy shocks, and documents distinctive disparities.

Sudan: Second Review Under the Staff-Monitored Program and Request for Extension-Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Sudan
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 65

Sudan: Second Review Under the Staff-Monitored Program and Request for Extension-Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Sudan

The transitional government embarked on a Staff-Monitored Program (SMP) in 2020 to help address major macroeconomic imbalances caused by decades of mismanagement, lay the groundwork for inclusive growth, and establish a track record of sound policies required for eventual HIPC debt relief. The economic challenges facing the authorities remain significant and have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, but there have been improvements in both the domestic and external environment. Sudan has cleared its arrears to the World Bank and African Development Bank thereby regaining access to multilateral grant funding. A financing package for the clearance of arrears to the IMF has been identified, and on May 17, 2021 a development partner conference was held in Paris with a side event to promote investment in Sudan.

Dollarization and Financial Development
  • Language: en
  • Pages: 39

Dollarization and Financial Development

Despite significant strides in financial development over the past decades, financial dollarization, as reflected in elevated shares of foreign currency deposits and credit in the banking system, remains common in developing economies. We study the impact of financial dollarization, differentiating across foreign currency deposits and credit on financial depth, access and efficiency for a large sample of emerging market and developing countries over the past two decades. Panel regressions estimated using system GMM show that deposit dollarization has a negative impact on financial deepening on average. This negative impact is dampened in cases with past periods of high inflation. There is also some evidence that dollarization hampers financial efficiency. The results suggest that policy efforts to reduce dollarization can spur faster and safer financial development.