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Demographic Headwinds in Central and Eastern Europe
The populations of Central and Eastern European (CESEE) countries—with the exception of Turkey—are expected to decrease significantly over the next 30 years, driven by low or negative net birth rates and outward migration. These changes will have significant implications for growth, living standards and fiscal sustainability.
Structural Reforms and Macroeconomic Performance - Country Cases
As a companion piece to the Board paper on Structural Reforms and Macroeconomic Performance: Initial Considerations for the Fund, this paper presents a selection of case studies on the structural reform experiences of member countries. These papers update the Board on work since the Triennial Surveillance Review toward strengthening the Fund’s capacity to analyze and, where relevant, offer policy advice on macro-relevant structural issues. The paper builds on the already considerable analytical work underway across the Fund, setting out considerations to support a more strategic approach going forward.
Republic of Korea
Korea faced challenges from inflation, growth slowdown, and financial stress in the wake of the pandemic. Growth started to slow in mid-2022 as global demand for electronics waned and domestic demand weakened but has begun to gradually recover in recent quarters. Headline inflation has declined from last year’s peak, though core inflation has remained more persistent. Pockets of financial vulnerability have emerged, but swift policy measures have helped to stabilize financial and housing markets. Despite having increased, systemic financial risks appear to remain manageable.
Who Bore the Brunt of the Pandemic in Europe? Shifting Private Stress to the Public Sector
In Europe, the severe human toll of the COVID-19 pandemic was compounded by the deepest fall in economic activity in modern history. Yet this huge decline in output did surprisingly little damage to the aggregate financial balance sheets of firms and households. This paper discusses how unprecedented policy support transferred private sector income losses to the public sector’s balance sheet and contrasts this experience to that of the global financial crisis.
Advancing Labor Market Reforms in Korea
This paper examines structural challenges facing the Korean labor market and analyzes the macroeconomic effects of potential labor market reforms. Our cross-country empirical analysis finds that easing of employment protection legislation tends to have positive macroeconmic effects during periods of strong growth but could turn contractionary in periods of slack. By contrast, increased spending on active labor market policies and reductions to the labor tax wedge tend to be more effective in periods of slack. Our analysis thus highlights the importance of considering economic and policy conditions when designing labor market reforms. Under the current disinflationary policy stance, the government’s focus on the working hour reform seems appriorate. With growth recovering, deregulation to reduce employment protection for regular workers can also be considered, combined with targeted support to vulnerable groups.
Trends and Challenges in Infrastructure Investment in Low-Income Developing Countries
This paper examines trends in infrastructure investment and its financing in low-income developing countries (LIDCs). Following an acceleration of public investment over the last 15 years, the stock of infrastructure assets increased in LIDCs, even though large gaps remain compared to emerging markets. Infrastructure in LIDCs is largely provided by the public sector; private participation is mostly channeled through Public-Private Partnerships. Grants and concessional loans are an essential source of infrastructure funding in LIDCs, while the complementary role of bank lending is still limited to a few countries. Bridging infrastructure gaps would require a broad set of actions to improve the efficiency of public spending, mobilize domestic resources and support from development partners, and crowd in the private sector.
Republic of Poland
This Selected Issues papers review factors that drive wage growth in Poland and studies structural characteristics and firm-level total factor productivity (TFP) in Poland and Emerging Europe. The increase in real unit labor costs (RULC) occurred alongside an unprecedently tight labor market. The study highlights that the more subdued RULC dynamics compared with the pre-crisis period, despite the now-lower unemployment rate, may reflect the recent influx of foreign workers. In order to more systematically identify the long- and short-term drivers of Polish wages, an Error-correction model has been used. Analyses presented in the paper using both Statistics Poland and Orbis data show that foreign-owned firms are associated with strong TFP performance through above-average TFP levels and growth rates. The findings suggest the need to create an environment conducive to entrepreneurship by reducing barriers to entry and ensuring a level playing field between state owned and private firms, while also avoiding barriers to scaling up businesses while encouraging investments in innovation and research and development.
Greece's Investment Gap
Greece’s investment rate plunged following the Sovereign Debt Crisis (SDC) and remained one of the lowest in the world in 2019. This paper explores recent investment dynamics and compares them against estimated benchmarks. Our results suggest that Greece has been under-investing since the SDC, with private investment notably lagging behind. The estimated investment gap ranges from 1.6–8 percent of GDP in 2019. Structural impediments have constrained corporate investment, while business cycle and balance sheet developments have held back household investment. Structural reforms are recommended to remove bottlenecks to corporate investment, improve efficiency of public investment, and boost household investment.
Macroeconomic Developments and Prospects in Low-Income Developing Countries - 2016
This paper is the third in a series assessing macroeconomic developments and prospects in low-income developing countries (LIDCs). The first of these papers (IMF, 2014a) examined trends during 2000–2014, a period of sustained strong growth across most LIDCs. The second paper (IMF, 2015a) focused on the impact of the drop in global commodity prices since mid-2014 on LIDCs—a story with losers (countries dependent on commodity exports, notably fuel) and winners (countries with a more diverse export base, where growth remained robust). The overarching theme in this paper’s assessment of the macroeconomic conjuncture among LIDCs is that of incomplete adjustment to the new world of “lower ...
Structural Reforms and Macroeconomic Performance - Initial Considerations for the Fund
Structural policies have become a prominent feature of today’s macroeconomic policy discussion. For many countries, lackluster economic growth and high unemployment cloud the outlook. With fewer traditional policy options, policymakers are increasingly focused on the complementary role of structural policies in promoting more durable job-rich growth. In particular, the G20 has emphasized the essential role of structural reforms in ensuring strong, sustainable and balanced growth. Against this backdrop, the 2014 Triennial Surveillance Review (TSR) called for further work to enhance the Fund’s ability to selectively provide more expert analysis and advice on structural issues, particularly where there is broad interest among member countries. The purpose of this paper is to engage the Board on staff’s post-TSR work toward strengthening the Fund’s capacity to analyze and, where relevant, offer policy advice on macro-relevant structural issues.
