France: Staff Report for the 2001 Article IV Consultation
IMF Staff Country Reports, November 5, 2001
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Bibliographic details
- Published: November 5, 2001
- Series: IMF Staff Country Reports
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.5089/9781451813616.002
Economic performance and drivers
- The buoyant economic record is attributable to:
- a favorable external environment;
- supportive monetary conditions;
- protracted wage moderation;
- gradual labor market reforms; and
- sizable cuts in tax rates and social security contributions.
- Subject tags in the report: Employment, Expenditure, Fiscal policy, Fiscal stance, Labor, Labor markets.
- Keywords in the report include: authorities' intention, consumer confidence, CR, deficit, Employment, Fiscal stance, Global, government, growth to a rate, higher-than-anticipated expenditure pressure, ISCR, labor market, Labor markets, outturn, stronger-than-expected consumption.
Fiscal stance, objectives, and framework
- The government reasserted its intention to achieve fiscal balance and substantially lower the public debt-to-gross domestic product ratio over the long term.
- To reach these fiscal goals, the report emphasizes the need to:
- tackle civil service reform;
- tackle health care reform;
- tackle pension reform; and
- strengthen the framework for fiscal policy and focus it more on binding medium-term expenditure norms.
Policy recommendations and reform priorities
- Priority reform areas identified:
- Civil service reform.
- Health care reform.
- Pension reform.
- Strengthening fiscal policy framework with emphasis on binding medium-term expenditure norms.
- Underlying policy rationale:
- Structural reforms combined with fiscal framework tightening are presented as necessary to translate favorable cyclical and monetary conditions into durable reductions in public debt and sustainable fiscal balance.