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The demands on monetary and exchange rate regimes in CESEE have evolved, in line with the region’s development. In the 1990s, the immediate challenge was to rein in excessive inflation following transition, and to establish basic monetary order. These objectives have been achieved, owing largely to successful exchange rate–based stabilization. With this accomplished, the focus has shifted to cyclical monetary management, and to appropriately managing monetary conditions during CESEE’s growth and income convergence to the euro area. Flexible exchange rates—and the ensuing capacity of monetary conditions to adapt to the economies’ needs—are likely to remain advantages, especially to extent that CESEE’s GDP and income levels will resume convergence to the euro area. Once this process restarts, tighter monetary conditions will again be needed to limit goods and asset price inflation, and to contain growth imbalances.
Financial “euroization”—or “dollarization” outside of Central and Eastern Europe—is typically analyzed as a singular phenomenon that can be traced to a common set of factors. This paper argues that two types of euroization need to be distinguished, which have different causes, economic consequences, and policy implications: carry trade euroization that emerges when households and corporations seek to exploit interest rate differentials between foreign currency loans and local currency deposits, and deposit-driven euroization that is rooted in distrust in the local currency as a savings vehicle. We present a theoretical framework that sketches key features of both euroization types, and test it with data from 28 Emerging European and Central Asian economies.
Europe continues to enjoy a strong growth spurt. Growth has firmed up in many European economies and the forecast is for more of the same. Real GDP increased by 2.8 percent in 2017, up from 1.8 percent in 2016. The expansion is largely driven by domestic demand, with investment increasingly contributing. Credit growth has finally picked up, which is helping Europe’s banks to rebuild profitability. While leading indicators have recently begun to ease, they remain at high levels. Accordingly, the forecast is for growth to stay strong, reaching 2.6 percent in 2018 and 2.2 percent in 2019. Amid the good times, however, fiscal adjustment and structural reforms efforts are flagging.
The European recovery is strengthening and broadening appreciably. Real GDP growth is projected at 2.4 percent in 2017, up from 1.7 percent in 2016, before easing to 2.1 percent in 2018. These are large upward revisions—0.5 and 0.2 percentage point for 2017 and 2018, respectively—relative to the April World Economic Outlook. The European recovery is spilling over to the rest of the world, contributing significantly to global growth. In a few advanced and many emerging economies, unemployment rates have returned to precrisis levels. Most emerging market European economies are now seeing robust wage growth. In many parts of Europe, however, wage growth is sluggish despite falling unemployment.
The key policy challenges facing countries in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe remain broadly unchanged, among them supporting domestic demand, addressing financial crisis legacies, rebuilding buffers against external shocks, and improving the business environment. Country-specific priorities depend on how far along they are in the postcrisis adjustment and their exposure to external risks.
This paper focuses on several IMF publications published in the winter of year 2018. Realizing Indonesia’s Economic Potential book uncovers some of the forces that are likely to shape Indonesia’s economy. It analyses the constraints to growth, propose options to boost economic growth, and explore key issues policymakers will need to handle in the future. The ASEAN Way: Sustaining Growth and Stability book provides a comprehensive account of how Association of Southeast Asian Nations, its individual members and as a group, rose above its worst regional financial crisis 20 years ago, to become one of the most resilient in the face of the worst global financial crisis just a decade later. The challenges faced and the policy responses taken, chronicled and analyzed in this study, can hopefully provide further lessons as we face a new global policy paradigm. It is a must-read for academics, the financial community, and policymakers alike.
Europe’s banking system is weighed down by high levels of non-performing loans (NPLs), which are holding down credit growth and economic activity. This discussion note uses a new survey of European country authorities and banks to examine the structural obstacles that discourage banks from addressing their problem loans. A three pillared strategy is advocated to remedy the situation, comprising: (i) tightened supervisory policies, (ii) insolvency reforms, and (iii) the development of distressed debt markets.
Was the postcrisis growth slowdown in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) structural or cyclical? We use three different methods—production function approach, basic multivariate filter, and multivariate filter with financial frictions—to evaluate potential growth and output gaps for 18 CESEE countries during 2000-15. Our findings suggest that potential growth weakened significantly after the crisis across most countries in the region. This decline appears to be largely due to stagnant productivity and weaker capital accumulation, which were associated with common external factors, including trading partners’ slow potential growth, but also decline in global trade and stalled expansion of global value chains. Our estimates suggest that output gaps in 2015 were largely closed in many countries in the region.
This Selected Issues paper discusses benefits of boosting quality public infrastructure spending in Romania. Since the financial crisis, fiscal and current account deficits have been tackled, but the infrastructure deficit has widened. Quality public investment in infrastructure can boost domestic demand and potential GDP growth, particularly in low growth environments. The IMF staff simulations employing the European Union’s production function methodology show significant growth benefits from higher quality infrastructure spending. As a result of higher investment, real GDP would increase by about 1 percent initially with the impact peaking in 2025.