Economic Issues

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Economic Issues

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IMF Publications

Contents

• Accountability Arrangements for Financial Sector Regulators
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Policymakers are often reluctant to grant independence to the agencies that regulate and supervise the financial sector because of the fear that these agencies, with their wide-ranging responsibilities and powers, could become a law unto themselves.
• Integrating Poor Countries into the World Trading System
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Efforts to liberalize world trade are increasingly focusing on strengthening the links between low-income countries’ trade policies and their development strategies.
• Liberalizing Capital Movements: Some Analytical Issues
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper addresses the potential gains and risks of open capital markets by first looking at what classical economic theory suggests aboutthe benefits of capital mobility and then examining the counterargumentsarising from problems of incomplete information and other distortions.
• Moving to a Flexible Exchange Rate
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: A growing number of countries are adopting flexible exchange rate regimes because flexibility offers more protection against external shocks and greater monetary independence.
• Public Investment and Public-Private Partnerships
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Over the past three decades, public spending on infrastructure, as a share of GDP, has been on the decline worldwide. Although the link between infrastructure investment and economic growth is not yet fully understood, the quality of infrastructure clearly affects a country's productivity, competiti
• Can Debt Relief Boost Growth in Poor Countries?
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Initiative, launched in 1999 by the IMF and the World Bank, was the first coordinated effort by the international financial community to reduce the foreign debt of the world’s poorest countries.
• Controlling Pollution: Using Taxes and Tradable Permits
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Explores different ways of controlling pollution through -green-taxes or permits, and evaluates their advantages and disadvantages. While many countries use environmental taxes, interest in tradable permits is growing.
• Corporate Sector Restructuring: The Role of Government in Times of Crisis
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Examines the steps involved in restructuring the corporate sector. Large-scale corporate restructuring made necessary by a financial crisis is one of the most daunting challenges faced by economic policymakers.
• Does Globalization Lower Wages and Export Jobs?
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Increased globalization - the international integration of markets for goods, technology, labor, and capital - has coincided in the past 20 years with a shift in demand from less-skilled workers to those with more skills.
• Educating Children in Poor Countries
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: In an ideal world, primary education would be universal and publicly financed, and all children would be able to attend school regardless of their parents’ ability or willingness to pay.
• Financial Reform: What Shakes It? What Shapes It?
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Financial sector liberalization was high on the agenda of policymakers during the last quarter of the twentieth century. But there were significant differences in the pace and scale of reform.
• Fixed or Flexible? Getting the Exchange Rate Right in the 1990s
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: This paper examines the recent evolution of exchange rate policies in the developing world. It looks at why so many countries have made a transition from fixed or "pegged" exchange rates to "managed floating" currencies.
• Full Dollarization: The Pros and Cons
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Analyzes the costs and benefits of full dollarization, or the adoption by one country of another country’s currency. Potential advantages include lower borrowing costs and deeper integration into world markets. But countries lose the ability to devalue, and become dependent on the U.S.
• Hedge Funds: What Do We Really Know?
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Each episode of volatility in financial markets heightens the attention of government officials and others to the role played by the hedge fund industry in financial market dynamics.
• Hiding in the Shadows: The Growth of the Underground Economy
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Examines the role of the shadow, or underground, economy. Looks at ways of measuring it, the relationship between the shadow economy and the main stream economy, why it has been growing in size, and its effects on overall economic growth.
• Inflation Targeting as a Framework for Monetary Policy
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Inflation distorts prices, erodes savings, discourages investment, stimulates capital flight, inhibits growth, and makes economic planning a nightmare.
• Moral Hazard: Does IMF Financing Encourage Imprudence by Borrowers and Lenders?
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Examines the issue of moral hazard inrelation to IMF loans to countries in financial difficulties. Concerns about moral hazard have had a prominent place in recent discussions on how the architecture of the international financial system should be reformed and what the IMF’s role should be.
• Preserving Financial Stability
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Spurred by advances in information and computer technologies, financial liberalization and innovation took off inthe late 1970s.
• Promoting Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: Learning What Works
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Africa is the world’s poorest continent, but amid all the bad news, there is hope for change. This pamphlet examines the lessons to be learned from some of the more successful economies south of the Sahara, and discusses a policy framework to promote sustainable economic growth and reduce poverty ac
• Rural Poverty in Developing Countries: Implications for Public Policy
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Reviews causes of poverty in rural areas and presents a policy framework for reducing rural poverty, including through land reform, public works programs, access to credit, physical and social infrastructure, subsidies, and transfer of technology.
• Should Financial Sector Regulators Be Independent?
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: In nearly every major financial crisis of the past decade-from East Asia to Russia, Turkey, and Latin America-political interference in financial sector regulation helped make a bad situation worse.
• Tax Policy for Developing Countries
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Discusses important tax policy issues facing developing countries today, provides a review of the role of tax incentives, and identifies some policy challenges posed by the globalization of the world economy. Draws on country cases.
• The Challenge of Predicting Economic Crises
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: The integration of financial markets around the world over the past decade has posed new challenges for policymakers. The speed with which money can be switched in and out of currencies and countries has increased with the efficiency of global communications, considerably shortening the time policym
• The Pension Puzzle: Prerequisites and Policy Choices in Pension Design
  • Published: December 30, 2016
  • Summary: Looks at the policy choices involved in creating pension schemes, particularly whether it is advisable to move away from government pay-as-you-go pensions toward private or publicly funded plans.