IMF Departmental Papers

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IMF Departmental Papers

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IMF Publications

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• Local Government Finances in China: Policy Options to Tackle the Debt Overhang
  • Published: September 25, 2026
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Mark Adams; Alissa Ashcroft; José M. Garrido; Henry Hoyle; Miss Estelle X Liu; Sonali Jain-Chandra; Nadia Rendak; Sandeep Saxena
  • Summary: This paper provides an in-depth analysis of the rapid growth in official local government (LG) and local government financing vehicle (LGFV) debt in China, with a focus on risks to macrofinancial stability and the challenges that have impeded past efforts to address official LG and LGFV debt problems. It proposes a detailed and carefully sequenced agenda to manage these debts, emphasizing the use of corporate insolvency frameworks, fiscal reforms, and preparing policy mechanisms for managing fiscal and financial stress. It aims to guide policymakers in mitigating the risks associated with restructuring LGFV debt and promoting sustainable growth, stressing the need for central government leadership in coordinating these efforts.
• Fiscal Rules and Medium-Term Fiscal Frameworks in Latin America and the Caribbean: Managing New Challenges
  • Published: September 14, 2026
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Armine Khachatryan; Roberto Perrelli; Carlos M. Alvarez; Mauricio Amaya; Olga Bespalova; Diego A Gutierrez; Keiichi Nakatani
  • Summary: The paper analyzes how fiscal institutions in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) can improve fiscal credibility, debt management, and public investment outcomes.
• Bridging Borders: Making the Most of EU Accession
  • Published: September 4, 2026
  • Summary: EU accession offers a unique opportunity to accelerate growth and raise living standards in the Western Balkans and Moldova. The paper suggests that GDP per capita could rise by about one-third within a decade under the right conditions.
• Macro-Financial Programming
  • Published: September 3, 2026
  • Summary: The paper introduces practical extensions to IMF macroeconomic frameworks that incorporate banking-sector dynamics and macro-financial feedbacks, helping country teams better assess how financial conditions affect the real economy.
• Resilience Amid Structural Transformations: Are Macro Policy Frameworks Fit for Purpose?
  • Published: August 26, 2026
  • Summary: The post-GFC era has marked a transition from the relative stability of the “Great Moderation” to a more volatile “Great Turbulence,” characterized by structural transformations, frequent shocks, heightened uncertainty, and constrained policy space.
• Toward a 28th European Enterprise Regime: A Single Rulebook to Enable Cross-Border Scale-Up in Europe
  • Published: July 21, 2026
  • Summary: This publication aims to shape the policy debate on how to deepen the EU single market by proposing a concrete, operational blueprint for an optional EU-wide enterprise regime.
• Unlocking the Potential: AI in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Published: July 13, 2026
  • Summary: Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a general-purpose technology with the potential to reshape productivity, labor markets, and growth trajectories worldwide.
• Europe’s Fiscal Squeeze: Tackling Rising Spending Pressures
  • Published: July 9, 2026
  • Summary: European countries face rising spending pressures and higher interest costs that could sharply increase debt and threaten growth if left unaddressed.
• Strengthening GCC-CCA Economic Cooperation
  • Published: July 1, 2026
  • Summary: Heightened global uncertainty, geoeconomic fragmentation, and trade tensions have made deepening economic ties more important to boost growth and resilience.
• Rethinking Fiscal Policy and Frameworks in the Caucasus and Central Asia
  • Published: June 1, 2026
  • Summary: This paper evaluates the fiscal frameworks in the CCA and finds significant scope to strengthen fiscal policy along its stabilization, allocation, and sustainability dimensions.
• Central Bank Independence and Monetary Policy Effectiveness in the Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus
  • Published: May 28, 2026
  • Summary: The subject of central bank independence (CBI) remains a keenly debated topic even decades into its adoption in a growing number of countries.
• ISORA 2023: Tax Administration: Performance and Practices
  • Published: May 27, 2026
  • Summary: This paper presents a broad analysis of the International Survey on Revenue Administration (ISORA) 2023, which collected detailed data from 166 tax administrations worldwide for fiscal year (FY) 2022.
• Anchoring Inflation Expectations: Evidence from Latin America during the Post-COVID Stress Test
  • Published: May 20, 2026
  • Summary: This paper examines the anchoring of long-run inflation expectations in Latin America during the post-COVID inflation surge. Monetary frameworks—many established around the turn of the century—generally performed well, with long-run beliefs moving little despite large shocks.
• Budget Credibility in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Published: April 6, 2026
  • Summary: This paper analyses budget credibility in Sub-Saharan Africa, where fiscal plans frequently diverge from execution. Using a new dataset covering 39 countries during 2021–24, it documents persistent deficit overruns driven by optimistic revenue forecasts, overruns in current spending, and systematic
• The “Safe” in the Financial Safety Net: Building Robust Deposit Insurance Systems
  • Published: March 23, 2026
  • Summary: The paper updates IMF staff views on deposit insurance policy issues, which were last comprehensively addressed in 2006 before the global financial crisis and prior to the international standard.
• StatGPT: AI for Official Statistics
  • Published: March 10, 2026
  • Summary: National statistical systems generate the statistics that underpin policy, economic analysis, and public trust. Yet, despite decades of investment in statistical capacity, two persistent challenges, data accessibility and interpretability, limit the impact of these official statistics.
• Macroeconomic Challenges of Fragility and Policies for Stability and Growth
  • Published: February 17, 2026
  • Summary: In 2025, fragile and conflict-affected (FCS) included 38 economies that are home to 1 billion people. The recent shocks have intensified fragility-related pressures even in more stable economies.
• Building Tax Capacity for Growth and Development: Evidence-Based Analysis for Mobilizing Domestic Revenue
  • Published: October 8, 2025
  • Summary: Tax capacity is fundamental to state-building and sustainable development. Achieving a tax-to-GDP ratio of at least 15 percent—endorsed by the UN’s Compromiso de Sevilla—is critical for institutional strength, financial market depth, and economic growth.
• Tax Expenditures in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Published: October 7, 2025
  • Summary: Tax expenditures in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are less well understood than in other regions and in some cases represent a significant element of fiscal policy.
• Social Spending Targets in IMF-Supported Programs in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Published: September 15, 2025
  • Summary: This paper analyzes the significance and effectiveness of social spending targets in IMF-supported programs in Sub-Saharan Africa from 2002 to 2024.
• Digital Payment Innovations in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Published: June 27, 2025
  • Summary: This paper takes stock of developments and policy issues related to digital payments innovations across sub-Saharan African (SSA), including central bank digital currency (CBDC), fast payments systems (FPS), mobile money, and crypto assets, which are now at the forefront of policymakers’ attention i
• Digital Transformation in the Gulf Cooperation Council Economies
  • Published: April 1, 2025
  • Summary: The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries have pursued ambitious digitalization strategies as part of their broader economic transformation agenda.
• Long-Term Spending Pressures in Europe
  • Published: March 13, 2025
  • Summary: European countries face high, rising, and long-lasting spending pressures, calling for a renewed focus on fiscal policy and comprehensive structural reforms to prepare their economies for the future.
• Corporate Sector Vulnerabilities and High Levels of Interest Rates
  • Published: January 8, 2025
  • Summary: This paper provides a comprehensive overview of corporate sector vulnerabilities that have emerged post-pandemic. The main focus in on the financial stability implications from corporate sector vulnerabilities in a new environment of high interest rates.
• Violent Crime and Insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean: A Macroeconomic Perspective
  • Published: November 11, 2024
  • Summary: Violent crime and insecurity remain major barriers to prosperity in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). With just 8 percent of the global population, LAC accounts for a third of the world’s homicides.
• Navigating External Shocks in Southeast Asia's Emerging Markets: Key Lessons and Challenges in Applying the IMF’s Integrated Policy Framework
  • Published: September 23, 2024
  • Summary: As relatively small open economies, South-East Asian emerging markets (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand or ASEAN-4) are highly susceptible to external shocks—both financial and real—that could induce large capital flows and exchange rate volatility that could lead to foreign exchange ma
• Upgrading Fiscal Frameworks in Asia-Pacific
  • Published: September 13, 2024
  • Summary: This paper seeks to guide the reform of fiscal frameworks in Asia-Pacific in the context of calls for a more active fiscal policy in a shock-prone world.
• Economic Diversification in Developing Countries: Lessons from Country Experiences with Broad-Based and Industrial Policies
  • Published: July 20, 2024
  • Summary: This paper examines the significance and impact of broad-based and industrial policies on economic diversification in developing economies, supported by a literature review, case studies, and IMF analyses.
• The Energy Security Gains from Strengthening Europe’s Climate Action
  • Published: May 17, 2024
  • Summary: Following the 2022 energy crisis, this paper investigates whether Europe’s ongoing efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions can also enhance its energy security.
• Central Bank Digital Currencies in the Middle East and Central Asia
  • Published: April 26, 2024
  • Summary: Against the backdrop of a rapidly digitalizing world, there is a growing interest in central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) among central banks, including in the Middle East and Central Asia (ME&CA) region.
• Rise of Digital Money: Implications for Pacific Island Countries
  • Published: February 21, 2024
  • Summary: The departmental paper, "Rise of Digital Money: Implications for Pacific Island Countries," delves into the fast-evolving landscape of digital money in a diverse region of extremes in size, remoteness and dispersion, highlighting its significant macroeconomic and financial consequences.
• Preparing Financial Sectors for a Green Future: Managing Risks and Securing Sustainable Finance
  • Published: February 12, 2024
  • Summary: The financial sectors of the Middle East and Central Asia (ME&CA) countries should play an important role in supporting climate-related policies for the region.
• Unlocking Climate Finance in Asia-Pacific: Transitioning to a Sustainable Future
  • Published: January 29, 2024
  • Summary: The transition to a sustainable future in the Asia-Pacific region has global economic significance. Despite driving global growth in recent years, the region's heavy coal reliance led to significant greenhouse gas emissions.
• Asia’s Perspectives on Climate Change: Policies, Perceptions, and Gaps
  • Published: November 28, 2023
  • Summary: Asia and the Pacific’s green transition will have far-reaching implications for the global economy. Over the past decades, the region has become the engine of global economic growth.
• Navigating Fiscal Challenges in Sub-Saharan Africa: Resilient Strategies and Credible Anchors in Turbulent Waters
  • Published: September 15, 2023
  • Summary: Sub-Saharan African countries have been hit, in recent years, by a cascading series of shocks that have exacerbated fiscal vulnerabilities. Significant reforms are needed to rebuild buffers and preserve the sustainability of public finances.
• Strengthening Monetary Policy Frameworks in the Caucasus and Central Asia
  • Published: August 14, 2023
  • Summary: Amidst a global backdrop of persistent post-COVID inflation and spillovers from Russia’s war in Ukraine, the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) region have faced strong price pressures in recent years.
• Managing Fiscal Risks in the Middle East and North Africa
  • Published: June 11, 2023
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Racheeda Boukezia; Jacques Charaoui; Jonas M Frank; Mahmoud Harb; Maximilien Queyranne; Nathalie Reyes; Patrick F Ryan; Alexander F. Tieman
  • Summary: Countries in the Middle East and North Africa are exposed to significant fiscal risks. This paper analyzes the sources of these fiscal risks in 17 low- and middle-income countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan region, excluding high-income Gulf countries (MENAPEG), and discusses avenues for reform to strengthen fiscal risk management. The materialization of fiscal risks in MENAPEG has been driven by macroeconomic shocks, contingent liabilities, and tail-risk events. The region has a track record of volatile economic growth and sharp exchange rate movements. High dependence on hydrocarbon revenue among MENAPEG oil and gas exporters and pervasive universal subsidies generate considerable budgetary exposure to swings in commodity prices. Substantial government involvement in the economy and large state ownership of firms and banks exposes several MENAPEG countries to contingent liabilities from state-owned enterprises and the financial sector. Lastly, the region’s history of social unrest and conflicts together with tail-risk events such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and natural disasters and climate change, have been important sources of fiscal risks. Many of the factors historically associated with the materialization of fiscal risks in MENAPEG countries are likely to remain sources of vulnerability in the future, raising the need for robust fiscal risk management frameworks. Policy reform can strengthen fiscal risk management in MENAPEG. This paper describes precedents where progress is made and provides a broad analytical framework for policymakers to build upon to fully embrace fiscal risk management in all its dimensions. Going forward, it is crucial for national authorities to enhance their capacity to identify, quantify, and assess risk factors and their budget’s exposure to them. This should be followed by thorough fiscal risk analysis to inform policy decisions to mitigate risks. Where risks cannot be mitigated or are judged to be acceptable, countries should consider adopting appropriate medium-term fiscal frameworks to build buffers to deal with them.
• Paving the Way to More Resilient, Inclusive, and Greener Economies in the Caucasus and Central Asia
  • Published: May 26, 2023
  • Summary: Raising long-term growth and resilience and improving living standards and inclusion are the top economic policy priorities for countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA).
• Trade Integration in Africa: Unleashing the Continent's Potential in a Changing World
  • Published: May 3, 2023
  • Summary: Since the 1960s, several initiatives have been undertaken to enhance trade integration in Africa. However, substantial tariff and nontariff barriers remain in place.
• Macroprudential Policy Effects: Evidence and Open Questions
  • Published: March 26, 2023
  • Summary: The global financial crisis (GFC) underscored the need for additional policy tools to safeguard financial stability and ultimately macroeconomic stability. Systemic financial vulnerabilities had developed under a seemingly tranquil macroeconomic surface of low inflation and small output gaps.
• Accelerating Innovation and Digitalization in Asia to Boost Productivity
  • Published: January 8, 2023
  • Summary: COVID-19 hit on the back of weakening productivity growth in many advanced and emerging Asian countries, a trend that could be exacerbated by the pandemic.
• Housing Market Stability and Affordability in Asia-Pacific
  • Published: December 13, 2022
  • Summary: The paper intends to highlight challenges in Asian housing markets linked to fast price rises especially in the advanced economies since COVID, and more broadly including many EMs in the period leading up to COVID.
• Regional Spillovers from the Venezuelan Crisis: Migration Flows and Their Impact on Latin America and the Caribbean
  • Published: December 1, 2022
  • Summary: As a new migration crisis is unfolding in Europe because of the war in Ukraine, the purpose of this paper is to also highlight the ongoing migration crisis in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) due to Venezuela’s economic collapse.
• A Low-Carbon Future for the Middle East and Central Asia: What are the Options?
  • Published: October 28, 2022
  • Summary: Nearly all countries in the Middle East and Central Asia have pledged to contain greenhouse gas emissions as part of the Paris Agreement. The purpose of this paper is to identify the menu of fiscal policy options which would allow the region to fulfil its emissions reduction commitment.
• Industrial Policy for Growth and Diversification: A Conceptual Framework
  • Published: September 28, 2022
  • Summary: As countries strive for a strong recovery and to recoup the losses incurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, they need to map out a new path for development and high and sustained growth.
• Climate Change and Chronic Food Insecurity in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Published: September 13, 2022
  • Summary: Climate change is intensifying food insecurity across sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with lasting adverse macroeconomic effects, especially on economic growth and poverty.
• Funding the Future: Tax Revenue Mobilization in the Pacific Island Countries
  • Published: September 9, 2022
  • Summary: Pacific Island Countries (PICs) face daunting spending needs related to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and adapting to the effects of climate change.
• Reforming the EU Fiscal Framework: Strengthening the Fiscal Rules and Institutions
  • Published: August 31, 2022
  • Summary: The EU’s fiscal framework needs reform. While existing fiscal rules have had some impact in constraining deficits, they did not prevent deficits and debt ratios that have threatened the stability of the monetary union in the past and that continue to create vulnerabilities today.
• Revenue Mobilization for a Resilient and Inclusive Recovery in the Middle East and Central Asia
  • Published: June 30, 2022
  • Summary: Domestic revenue mobilization has been a longstanding challenge for countries in the Middle East and Central Asia. Insufficient revenue has often constrained priority social and infrastructure spending, reducing countries’ ability to reach the Sustainable Development Goals, improve growth prospects,
• Strengthening Capital Markets--National Progress and Gaps
  • Published: June 24, 2022
  • Summary: This paper discusses progress on post-global financial crisis (GFC) reforms and the emerging challenges in the area of capital markets regulation and supervision, drawing on the analysis and insights from the IMF’s Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP).
• Informality, Development, and the Business Cycle in North Africa
  • Published: May 31, 2022
  • Summary: North African economies are characterized by a significant share of informal activity and employment. About two-thirds of workers in North Africa operate without any formal arrangement and social protection, and about 30 percent of GDP is estimated to be produced by informal workers and firms.
• Regulating, Supervising, and Handling Distress in Public Banks
  • Published: April 28, 2022
  • Summary: This paper highlights the distinct challenges and suggests practical solutions to the effective regulation, supervision, and crisis management for public banks.
• The Global Bank Stress Test
  • Published: April 4, 2022
  • Summary: This paper presents the framework underlying the Global Bank Stress Test (GST) and applies it to recent data and global scenarios to illustrate the usefulness of the framework in assessing the potential impact of global shocks on banks around the world.
• Feeling the Heat: Adapting to Climate Change in the Middle East and Central Asia
  • Published: March 25, 2022
  • Summary: Climate change is among humanity’s greatest challenges, and the Middle East and Central Asia region is on the frontlines of its human, economic, and physical ramifications.
• Economic and Environmental Benefits from International Cooperation on Climate Policies
  • Published: March 16, 2022
  • Summary: This paper discusses and analyzes various international mechanisms to scale up global action on climate mitigation and address the policy gap in this area.
• Macroprudential Policies to Enhance Financial Stability in the Caucasus and Central Asia
  • Published: March 7, 2022
  • Summary: Limited economic diversification has made the economies of the Caucasus and Central Asia particularly vulnerable to external shocks. The economies in the region are heavily reliant on oil and mining exports as well as remittances.
• Managing Financial Sector Risks from the COVID-19 Crisis in the Caucasus and Central Asia
  • Published: March 7, 2022
  • Summary: The COVID-19 crisis raises the risk of renewed financial sector pressures in the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) region in the period ahead.
• European Labor Markets and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Fallout and the Path Ahead
  • Published: March 2, 2022
  • Summary: In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused by far the largest shock to European economies since World War II. Yet, astonishingly, the EU unemployment rate had already declined to its pre-crisis level by 2021Q3, and in some countries the labor force participation rate is at a record high.
• Assessing Banking Sector Vulnerabilities in the Gulf Cooperation Council in the Wake of COVID-19
  • Published: February 28, 2022
  • Summary: The Gulf Cooperation Council region faced a significant economic toll from the COVID-19 pandemic and oil price shocks in 2020. Policymakers responded to the pandemic with decisive and broad measures to support households and businesses and mitigate the long-term impact on the economy.
• Policy Options for Supporting and Restructuring Firms Hit by the COVID-19 Crisis
  • Published: February 18, 2022
  • Summary: This paper presents principles that could guide the design of more targeted policy support and facilitate the restructuring of firms adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Monetary Finance: Do Not Touch, or Handle with Care?
  • Published: January 11, 2022
  • Summary: This paper reviews the theoretical arguments in favor and against MF and presents an empirical assessment of the risks that it may pose for inflation.
• E-Money: Prudential Supervision, Oversight, and User Protection
  • Published: December 13, 2021
  • Summary: This departmental paper discusses the evolving prudential frameworks for nonbank issuers of electronic money. Some jurisdictions take a relatively light-touch approach to regulating electronic money issuers (EMIs).
• Taking Stock of IMF Capacity Development on Monetary Policy Forecasting and Policy Analysis Systems
  • Published: December 10, 2021
  • Summary: This paper takes stock of forecasting and policy analysis system capacity development (FPAS CD), drawing extensively on the experience and lessons learned from developing FPAS capacity in the central banks.
• ISORA 2018: Understanding Revenue Administration
  • Published: November 3, 2021
  • Summary: The International Survey on Revenue Administration (ISORA) collects tax administration data from national or federal tax administrations.
• The Global Financial Crisis and Adjustment to Shocks in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda: A Balance Sheet Analysis Perspective
  • Published: November 1, 2021
  • Summary: This paper analyzes the impact of the global financial crisis on the banking systems in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda, and their responses to it, using information from banking system balance sheets. The paper undertakes two distinct analyses.
• Powering the Digital Economy: Opportunities and Risks of Artificial Intelligence in Finance
  • Published: October 21, 2021
  • Summary: This paper discusses the impact of the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the financial sector.
• Asset Purchases and Direct Financing: Guiding Principles for Emerging Markets and Developing Economies during COVID-19 and Beyond
  • Published: October 8, 2021
  • Summary: Many central banks in emerging market and developing economies have used asset purchases to reduce financial stresses during the COVID crisis, and some are doing so to provide macroeconomic stimulus.
• Tax Avoidance in Sub-Saharan Africa’s Mining Sector
  • Published: September 27, 2021
  • Summary: This paper aims to contribute to the international policy debate around profit shifting, tax avoidance and SSA’s revenue mobilization efforts in three ways. First, it examines the importance of mining, the role of multinational enterprises (MNEs), and mining revenue outcomes in SSA.
• Asset Purchase Programs in European Emerging Markets
  • Published: September 23, 2021
  • Summary: Several emerging market central banks in Europe deployed asset purchase programs (APPs) amid the 2020 pandemic. The common main goals were to address market dysfunction and impaired monetary transmission, distinct from the quantitative easing conducted by major advanced economy central banks.
• Unlocking Access to Climate Finance for Pacific Island Countries
  • Published: September 23, 2021
  • Summary: This departmental paper provides an in-depth overview of access to climate finance for Pacific Island Countries, evaluating successes and challenges faced by countries and proposes a way forward to unlock access to climate funds.
• State-Owned Enterprises in Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia: Size, Costs, and Challenges
  • Published: September 17, 2021
  • Summary: Prior to the COVID-19 shock, the key challenge facing policymakers in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia region was how to generate strong, sustainable, job-rich, inclusive growth.
• Digitalization and Taxation in Asia
  • Published: September 13, 2021
  • Summary: Digitalization in Asia is pervasive, unique, and growing. It stands out by its sheer scale, with internet users far exceeding numbers in other regions.
• Investment Funds and Financial Stability: Policy Considerations
  • Published: September 13, 2021
  • Summary: The paper’s analysis underscores the importance of the ongoing Financial Stability Board-led process of identifying policy options, involving national authorities and the International Organization of Securities Commissions and other standard setters.
• Pension Reforms in Europe: How Far Have We Come and Gone?
  • Published: September 10, 2021
  • Summary: In the past few decades, a myriad of reforms in Europe have had a significant impact on the way and extent to which public pensions provide retirement income. This departmental paper takes stock of where European pension systems stand and assesses their key characteristics.
• Who Bore the Brunt of the Pandemic in Europe? Shifting Private Stress to the Public Sector
  • Published: July 14, 2021
  • Summary: 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.
• Resolving Nonperforming Loans in Sub-Saharan Africa in the Aftermath of the COVID-19 Crisis
  • Published: June 7, 2021
  • Summary: Sub-Saharan African countries are facing an unprecedented health and economic crisis that is likely to severely hurt credit quality and raise non-performing loans from already high levels.
• Taxing Multinationals in Europe
  • Published: May 25, 2021
  • Summary: This paper aims to contribute to the European policy debate on corporate income tax reform in three ways. First, it takes a step back to review the performance of the CIT in Europe over the past several decades and the important role played by MNEs in European economies.
• Affordable Rental Housing: Making It Part of Europe’s Recovery
  • Published: May 24, 2021
  • Summary: Many European economies have faced pressure from rental housing affordability that has widened social and economic divergence.
• Private Finance for Development: Wishful Thinking or Thinking Out of the Box?
  • Published: May 14, 2021
  • Summary: The Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated the tension between large development needs in infrastructure and scarce public resources. To alleviate this tension and promote a strong and job-rich recovery from the crisis, Africa needs to mobilize more financing from and to the private sector.
• Mastering the Risky Business of Public-Private Partnerships in Infrastructure
  • Published: May 10, 2021
  • Summary: Investment in infrastructure can be a driving force of the economic recovery in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic in the context of shrinking fiscal space.
• Commodity Cycles, Inequality, and Poverty in Latin America
  • Published: April 26, 2021
  • Summary: Over the past decades, inequality has risen not just in advanced economies but also in many emerging market and developing economies, becoming one of the key global policy challenges. And throughout the 20th century, Latin America was associated with some of the world’s highest levels of inequality.
• COVID-19: How Will European Banks Fare?
  • Published: March 24, 2021
  • Summary: This paper evaluates the impact of the crisis on European banks’ capital under a range of macroeconomic scenarios, using granular data on the size and riskiness of sectoral exposures.
• Fiscal Policies to Address Climate Change in Asia and the Pacific
  • Published: March 24, 2021
  • Summary: Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing policymakers worldwide, and the stakes are particularly high for Asia and the Pacific. This paper analyzes how fiscal policy can address challenges from climate change in Asia and the Pacific.
• Macroeconomic Research in Low-income Countries: Advances Made in Five Key Areas Through a DFID-IMF Collaboration
  • Published: March 24, 2021
  • Summary: Despite strong economic growth since 2000, many low-income countries (LICs) still face numerous macroeconomic challenges, even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the deceleration in real GDP growth during the 2008 global financial crisis, LICs on average saw 4.
• Strengthening Bank Regulation and Supervision: National Progress and Gaps
  • Published: March 15, 2021
  • Summary: The paper employs two complementary strategies. First, it is pursues textual analysis (text mining) of the assessment reports to identify successes and challenges the authorities are facing.
• Negative Interest Rates: Taking Stock of the Experience So Far
  • Published: March 1, 2021
  • Summary: This paper focuses on negative interest rate policies and covers a broad range of its effects, with a detailed discussion of findings in the academic literature and of broader country experiences.
• Policy Advice to Asia in the COVID-19 Era
  • Published: March 1, 2021
  • Summary: The Asia-Pacific region was the first to be hit by the COVID-19 pandemic; it put a strain on its people and economies, and policymaking became exceptionally difficult.
• Tourism in the Post-Pandemic World: Economic Challenges and Opportunities for Asia-Pacific and the Western Hemisphere
  • Published: February 19, 2021
  • Summary: This departmental paper analyzes the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on tourism in the Asia Pacific region, Latin America, and Caribbean countries.
• Economic Governance Reforms to Support Inclusive Growth in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia
  • Published: January 8, 2021
  • Summary: Countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) progress in improving economic governance. However, surveys suggest that citizens and businesses continue to view weak governance and corruption as serious problems in the region. Governance indicators broadly corroborate this view.
• "Low for Long" and Risk-Taking
  • Published: November 23, 2020
  • Summary: The COVID-19 pandemic is causing an unprecedented worldwide economic contraction, leading central banks to reduce interest rates to historically low levels and making unconventional monetary policies—including “low for long” interest rates and asset purchases—increasingly common.
• Reserve Currencies in an Evolving International Monetary System
  • Published: November 17, 2020
  • Summary: Despite major structural shifts in the international monetary system over the past six decades, the US dollar remains the dominant international reserve currency.
• Infrastructure in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe: Benchmarking, Macroeconomic Impact, and Policy Issues
  • Published: September 25, 2020
  • Summary: CESEE countries lag in terms of infrastructure compared to the EU15, and deficient infrastructure is often cited as a constraint to growth and convergence. Investing in infrastructure is therefore an important long-standing policy issue for the region.
• Social Spending for Inclusive Growth in the Middle East and Central Asia
  • Published: September 25, 2020
  • Summary: This paper examines the role of social spending in improving socioeconomic outcomes in the Middle East and Central Asia. In particular, it addresses the following questions: (1) how large is social spending across the region? (2) how do countries in the region fare on socioeconomic outcomes?
• EU Climate Mitigation Policy
  • Published: September 16, 2020
  • Summary: This paper aims to contribute to the debate on the choice of policies to reach the more ambitious 2030 emission reduction goals currently under consideration.
• Sectoral Policies for Climate Change Mitigation in the EU
  • Published: September 16, 2020
  • Summary: This paper discusses sectoral policies needed to achieve the ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets announced in the European Union’s Green Deal, complementing the companion paper “EU Climate Mitigation Policy”, which focuses on broader EU-level policies.
• The Development Path Less Traveled: The Experience of Rwanda
  • Published: August 17, 2020
  • Summary: This paper explores some of the key factors behind Rwanda key successes, including unique institution-building that emphasized governance and ownership; aid-fueled and government-led strategic investment in people, infrastructure, and high-yield economic activity; re-establishment and expansion of a
• The Promise of Fintech: Financial Inclusion in the Post COVID-19 Era
  • Published: June 29, 2020
  • Summary: Technology is changing the landscape of the financial sector, increasing access to financial services in profound ways. These changes have been in motion for several years, affecting nearly all countries in the world.
• Measuring Financial Access: 10 Years of the IMF Financial Access Survey
  • Published: May 12, 2020
  • Summary: This departmental paper marks the 10th anniversary of the IMF Financial Access Survey (FAS). It offers a retrospective of the FAS database, along with some reflections as to its future directions. Since its 2009 launch, the FAS has provided granular data on access to and use of financial services.
• Stress Testing in Sub-Saharan Africa: Practices, Communications, and Capacity Development
  • Published: May 11, 2020
  • Summary: The paper finds that supervisory stress tests are conducted in more than half of sub-Saharan African countries, particularly in western and southern Africa, and that the number of individual stress tests has grown exponentially since the early 2010s.
• Improving Fiscal Transparency to Raise Government Efficiency and Reduce Corruption Vulnerabilities in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe
  • Published: May 10, 2020
  • Summary: This departmental paper investigates how countries in Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) can improve fiscal transparency, thereby raising government efficiency and reducing corruption vulnerabilities.
• Macroprudential Policies and House Prices in Europe
  • Published: February 20, 2020
  • Summary: Macroprudential policy in Europe aligns with the objective of limiting systemic risk, namely the risk of widespread disruption to the provision of financial services that is caused by an impairment of all or parts of the financial system and that can cause serious negative consequences for the real
• Managing Systemic Banking Crises: New Lessons and Lessons Relearned
  • Published: February 10, 2020
  • Summary: This paper updates the IMF’s work on general principles, strategies, and techniques from an operational perspective in preparing for and managing systemic banking crises in light of the experiences and challenges faced during and since the global financial crisis.
• Stress Testing at the IMF
  • Published: January 31, 2020
  • Summary: This paper explains specifics of stress testing at the IMF. After a brief section on the evolution of stress tests at the IMF, the paper presents the key steps of an IMF staff stress test. They are followed by a discussion on how IMF staff uses stress tests results for policy advice.
• The Future of Oil and Fiscal Sustainability in the GCC Region
  • Published: January 31, 2020
  • Summary: The oil market is undergoing fundamental change. New technologies are increasing the supply of oil from old and new sources, while rising concerns over the environment are seeing the world gradually moving away from oil.
• Lifting Growth in the Western Balkans: The Role of Global Value Chains and Services Exports
  • Published: November 11, 2019
  • Summary: In the past 25 years, exports have contributed strongly to growth and economic convergence in many small open economies. However, the Western Balkan (WB) region, consisting of small emerging market economies, has not fully availed itself of this driver of growth and convergence.
• Is South Asia Ready for Take Off?: A Sustainable and Inclusive Growth Agenda
  • Published: October 29, 2019
  • Summary: Since the mid-1980s, durable reforms coupled with prudent macroeconomic management have brought steady progress to the South Asia region, making it one of the world’s fastest growing regions.
• Facing the Tides: Managing Capital Flows in Asia
  • Published: October 21, 2019
  • Summary: This paper looks empirically at some economic effects of volatile exchange rates and financial conditions and examines policy responses for managing such volatility.
• Cybersecurity Risk Supervision
  • Published: September 23, 2019
  • Summary: This paper highlights the emerging supervisory practices that contribute to effective cybersecurity risk supervision, with an emphasis on how these practices can be adopted by those agencies that are at an early stage of developing a supervisory approach to strengthen cyber resilience.
• The Economics and Implications of Data: An Integrated Perspective
  • Published: September 20, 2019
  • Summary: This SPR Departmental Paper will provide policymakers with a framework for studying changes to national data policy frameworks.
• Strategy for Fintech Applications in the Pacific Island Countries
  • Published: August 21, 2019
  • Summary: The Bali Fintech Agenda highlights 12 principles for policymakers to consider when formulating their approaches to new financial technology (fintech). The agenda aims to harness the potential of fintech while managing associated risks.
• Demographic Headwinds in Central and Eastern Europe
  • Published: July 11, 2019
  • Summary: 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.
• Reassessing the Role of State-Owned Enterprises in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe
  • Published: June 17, 2019
  • Summary: The Central, Eastern, and South Eastern European (CESEE) region is ripe for a reassessment of the role of the state in economic activity.
• Trade Tensions, Global Value Chains, and Spillovers: Insights for Europe
  • Published: June 11, 2019
  • Summary: Europe is deeply integrated into global value chains and recent trade tensions raise the question of how European economies would be affected by the introduction of tariffs or other trade barriers.
• Frontiers of Economic Policy Communications
  • Published: May 20, 2019
  • Summary: The paper provides an overall view of communications across various areas of economic policy, aiming to help country authorities as they increasingly use communications as a policy tool in its own right.
• Promoting Inclusive Growth in the Caucasus and Central Asia
  • Published: May 14, 2019
  • Summary: CCA countries achieved gains in inclusiveness over the past 20 years as incomes increased and poverty, inequality, and unemployment declined. Most of the progress occurred before the 2008–09 global financial crisis. Since then, poverty rates have barely moved and, for oil importers, remain elevated.
• Public-Private Partnerships in the Caribbean Region: Reaping the Benefits while Managing Fiscal Risks
  • Published: May 8, 2019
  • Summary: To provide policymakers in the Caribbean with a governance framework for improving infrastructure through Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), while limiting their fiscal costs and risks for the government.
• Report on the Pacific Roundtables: Actions to Address Correspondent Banking and Remittances Pressure
  • Published: May 1, 2019
  • Summary: The paper looks at feasible concrete action that can be taken by correspondent and respondent banks, money transfer operators, the Pacific authorities, the Australian and New Zealand authorities, and international organizations.
• ISORA 2016: Understanding Revenue Administration
  • Published: March 7, 2019
  • Summary: This paper presents the results of the International Survey on Revenue Administration (ISORA) deployed during 2016 and covering fiscal years 2014 and 2015. It is made possible by the participation of 135 tax administrations from around the world that provided data.
• FinTech in Sub-Saharan African Countries: A Game Changer?
  • Published: February 13, 2019
  • Summary: FinTech is a major force shaping the structure of the financial industry in sub-Saharan Africa. New technologies are being developed and implemented in sub-Saharan Africa with the potential to change the competitive landscape in the financial industry.
• Financial Inclusion of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the Middle East and Central Asia
  • Published: February 11, 2019
  • Summary: The importance of financial inclusion is increasingly recognized by policymakers around the world. Small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) financial inclusion, in particular, is at the core of the economic diversification and growth challenges many countries are facing.
• Economic Integration in the Maghreb: An Untapped Source of Growth
  • Published: February 8, 2019
  • Summary: Individual countries of the Maghreb have achieved substantial progress on trade, but, as a region they remain the least integrated in the world.
• Debt Maturity and the Use of Short-Term Debt: Evidence form Sovereigns and Firms
  • Published: February 4, 2019
  • Summary: The maturity structure of debt can have financial and real consequences. Short-term debt exposes borrowers to rollover risk (where the terms of financing are renegotiated to the detriment of the borrower) and is associated with financial crises.
• The Future of Work in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Published: December 14, 2018
  • Summary: Far-reaching changes in technology, climate, and global economic integration are transforming the world of work in ways that we do not yet fully understand. Will the swift technological advances of the Fourth Industrial Revolution raise the standards of living for everyone?
• Financial Inclusion in Asia-Pacific
  • Published: September 18, 2018
  • Summary: Asia has made significant progress in financial inclusion, but both its across-country and intra-country disparities are among the highest in the world. The gaps between the rich and the poor, rural and urban populations, and men and women remain deep.
• Managing the Sovereign-Bank Nexus
  • Published: September 14, 2018
  • Summary: This paper reviews empirical and theoretical work on the links between banks and their governments (the bank-sovereign nexus). How significant is this nexus? What do we know about it? To what extent is it a source of concern? What is the role of policy intervention?
• Central African Economic and Monetary Community: A New Medium-Term Approach for International Reserve Management
  • Published: August 3, 2018
  • Summary: This paper discusses possible reserve management approaches in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC). The paper looks beyond the region’s current oil crisis and proposes a new approach to international reserve management in the medium term.
• Risk Management and Regulation
  • Published: August 1, 2018
  • Summary: The evolution of risk management has resulted from the interplay of financial crises, risk management practices, and regulatory actions.
• Shadow Banking and Market-Based Finance
  • Published: August 1, 2018
  • Summary: Variants of nonbank credit intermediation differ greatly. We provide a conceptual framework to help distinguish various characteristics—structural features, economic motivations, and risk implications—associated with different forms of nonbank credit intermediation.
• Macro-Financial Linkages in Shallow Markets: Experience from the African Department’s Pilot Countries
  • Published: July 23, 2018
  • Summary: This paper assesses and disseminates experiences and lessons from low-income countries (LICs) in Sub-Saharan Africa that were selected by the Africa Department in 2015-16 as pilots for enhanced analysis of macro-financial linkages in Article IV staff reports.
• Opportunity for All : Promoting Growth and Inclusiveness in the Middle East and North Africa
  • Published: July 10, 2018
  • Summary: This publication brings together a set of IMF papers that prepared as backgrounds for the various sessions of the conference and will help put into broader dissemination channels the results of this important conference.
• Building Resilient Banking Sectors in the Caucasus and Central Asia
  • Published: July 6, 2018
  • Summary: External shocks since 2014—lower oil prices and slower growth in key trading partners—have put financial sectors, mainly banks, in the eight Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) countries under increased stress. Even before the shocks, CCA banking sectors were not at full strength.
• Lessons for Effective Fiscal Decentralization in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Published: July 6, 2018
  • Summary: Fiscal decentralization is becoming a pressing issue in a number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting demands for a greater local voice in spending decisions and efforts to strengthen social cohesion.
• Public Investment Efficiency in Sub-Saharan African Countries
  • Published: July 6, 2018
  • Summary: There is significant room to improve public investment efficiency in sub-Saharan Africa. Investment in sub-Saharan African countries is lagging vis-à-vis peers such as emerging and developing Asia as well as Latin America and the Caribbean, and the region’s infrastructure is perceived as being of re
• Opening Up in the Caucasus and Central Asia: Policy Frameworks to Support Regional and Global Integration
  • Published: June 19, 2018
  • Summary: The Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) countries are at an important juncture in their economic transition. Following significant economic progress during the 2000s, recent external shocks have revealed the underlying vulnerabilities of the current growth model.
• Growing Pains: Is Latin America Prepared for Population Aging?
  • Published: April 16, 2018
  • Summary: This paper estimates the fiscal costs of population aging in Latin America and provides policy recommendations on reforms needed to make these costs manageable.
• A Growth-Friendly Path for Building Fiscal Buffers in the Caucuses and Central Asia
  • Published: April 12, 2018
  • Summary: Since 2014, large and persistent external shocks have hit the CCA region, particularly a slump in global commodity prices and slower growth in its key economic partners. Fiscal accommodation, along with currency adjustment, has helped the CCA mitigate the impact of the external shocks.
• Boosting Fiscal Space: The Roles of GDP-Linked Debt and Longer Maturities
  • Published: March 14, 2018
  • Summary: Noting that the aftermath of the global financial crisis has left many advanced economies with very high sovereign debt ratios and some emerging markets with high debt, this report considers whether there are ways to expand fiscal space that do not involve countries paying down debt or promising to
• Revisiting the Economic Case for Fiscal Union in the Euro Area
  • Published: February 20, 2018
  • Summary: The paper makes an analytical contribution to the revived discussion about the euro area’s institutional setup. After significant progress during the euro crisis, the drive to complete Europe’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) had stalled, and the way forward will benefit from an in-depth look at t
• Public Infrastructure in the Western Balkans: Opportunities and Challenges
  • Published: February 7, 2018
  • Summary: An assessment of public infrastructure development in the Western Balkans. The paper quantifies the large gaps across various sectors/dimensions, evaluates current infrastructure plans, and discusses funding options available to countries in the region.
• Public Wage Bills in the Middle East and Central Asia - Executive Summary
  • Published: January 9, 2018
  • Summary: Analysis of policies for managing public sector wage bills in the Middle East and Central Asia region. While some work has been done recently at the Fund on issues related to government employment and compensation, to our knowledge, this is the first study to systematically examine, with a focus on
• Fiscal Rules: Coping with Revenue Volatility in Lesotho and Swaziland
  • Published: September 12, 2017
  • Summary: Over the past decade, Lesotho and Swaziland have faced significant volatility in their fiscal revenues, owing to highly unstable Southern African Customs Union (SACU) receipts. Based on model analysis, this paper explores the advantages of implementing fiscal rules to deal with such volatility.
• Understanding Revenue Administration: Results from the Second Survey of the Revenue Administration – Fiscal Information Tool
  • Published: June 30, 2017
  • Summary: This paper presents the results of the second round of the Revenue Administration Fiscal Information Tool (RA-FIT) country survey in an aggregated manner for all respondents and by income group.
• A Rebalancing Act for China and Africa: The Effects of China’s Rebalancing on Sub-Saharan Africa’s Trade and Growth
  • Published: April 7, 2017
  • Summary: How does China’s new growth model affect sub-Saharan Africa? To address this question, this paper first looks at the growing ties between China and Africa; attempts to estimate more precisely the impact on growth through the trade channel; and finally draws some policy implications regarding whether
• Structural Transformation in Employment and Productivity: What Can Africa Hope For?
  • Published: April 7, 2017
  • Summary: This paper provides the most complete analysis of the structural transformation among low- and low-middle-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa to date.
• A Work in Progress: Integrating Markets for Goods, Labor, and Capital in the East African Community
  • Published: January 18, 2017
  • Summary: This paper assesses the extent of economic and financial integration among the East African Community (EAC) along a number of dimensions and, where possible, whether integration has increased in the wake of the major regional integration policy milestones.
• Avoiding the New Mediocre: Raising Long-Term Growth in the Middle East and Central Asia
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Raising the Middle East and Central Asia’s long-term growth prospects is critical for meeting the region's pressing need for jobs and higher living standards.
• Banking in Sub-Saharan Africa : The Macroeconomic Context
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Many countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have seen accelerated growth for an extended period of time since the mid-1990s, making a clear break with their long stagnant growth during the previous two decades.
• Boom, Bust, or Prosperity? Managing Sub-Saharan Africa’s Natural Resource Wealth
  • Published: August 27, 2013
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Charlotte J. Lundgren; Alun H. Thomas; Robert C York
  • Summary: Sizeable natural resource endowments and potentially large financial inflows from their extraction provide an unparalleled opportunity for economic growth and development in a growing number of sub-Saharan African countries.
• Building Resilience in Sub-Saharan Africa's Fragile States
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper analyzes the persistence of fragility in some sub-Saharan African states and the multiple dimensions of state weakness that are simultaneously at play.
• Central America: Economic Progress and Reforms
  • Published: November 24, 2008
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Dominique Desruelle; Alfred Schipke
  • Summary: Central America has made substantial progress in recent years in moving economic reforms forward and deepening regional and global integration. As result of these efforts, the region has experienced higher growth, increased capital inflows, and some reductions in poverty rates.
• Changing Patterns of Global Trade
  • Published: January 9, 2012
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Nagwa Riad; Luca Errico; Christian Henn; Christian Saborowski; Mika Saito; Jarkko Turunen
  • Summary: Changing Patterns of Global Trade outlines the factors underlying important shifts in global trade that have occurred in recent decades.
• China's Changing Trade and the Implications for the CLMV
  • Published: September 1, 2016
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Koshy Mathai; Geoff Gottlieb; Gee Hee Hong; Sung Eun Jung; Jochen M. Schmittmann; Jiangyan Yu
  • Summary: China’s trade patterns are evolving. While it started in light manufacturing and the assembly of more sophisticated products as part of global supply chains, China is now moving up the value chain, “onshoring” the production of higher-value-added upstream products and moving into more sophisticated downstream products as well. At the same time, with its wages rising, it has started to exit some lower-end, more labor-intensive sectors. These changes are taking place in the broader context of China’s rebalancing—away from exports and toward domestic demand, and within the latter, away from investment and toward consumption—and as a consequence, demand for some commodity imports is slowing, while consumption imports are slowly rising. The evolution of Chinese trade, investment, and consumption patterns offers opportunities and challenges to low-wage, low-income countries, including China’s neighbors in the Mekong region. Cambodia, Lao P.D.R., Myanmar, and Vietnam (the CLMV) are all open economies that are highly integrated with China. Rebalancing in China may mean less of a role for commodity exports from the region, but at the same time, the CLMV’s low labor costs suggest that manufacturing assembly for export could take off as China becomes less competitive, and as China itself demands more consumption items. Labor costs, however, are only part of the story. The CLMV will need to strengthen their infrastructure, education, governance, and trade regimes, and also run sound macro policies in order to capitalize fully on the opportunities presented by China’s transformation. With such policy efforts, the CLMV could see their trade and integration with global supply chains grow dramatically in the coming years.
• Coping with the Global Financial Crisis: Challenges Facing Low-Income Countries
  • Published: March 16, 2010
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Stefania Fabrizio
  • Summary: This forthcoming title in the Departmental Paper Series describes the special challenges facing low-income countries as economic growth contracts by an estimated 1.1 percent globally.
• Creating Policy Space in Low-Income Countries during the Recent Crises
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Low-income countries were hit especially hard by sharp increases in world food and fuel prices in 2007-08 and the global financial crisis that followed.
• Cyclical Behavior of Fiscal Policy among Sub-Saharan African Countries
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Excessively procyclical fiscal policy can be harmful. This paper investigates to what extent the fiscal policies of sub-Saharan African countries were procyclical in recent years and the reasons for the degree of fiscal procyclicality among these countries.
• Dollarization in Sub-Saharan Africa: Experiences and Lessons
  • Published: May 15, 2015
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Mauro Mecagni; Juan S Corrales; Jemma Dridi; Rodrigo Garcia-Verdu; Patrick A. Imam; Justin Matz; Carla Macario; Rodolfo Maino; et al.
  • Summary: Dollarization—the use of foreign currencies as a medium of exchange, store of value, or unit of account—is a notable feature of financial development under macroeconomically fragile conditions.
• Emerging from the Global Crisis: Macroeconomic Challenges Facing Low-Income Countries
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Although the impact of the global crisis has been severe, real per capita GDP growth stayed positive in two-thirds of low-income countries (LICs), unlike in previous global downturns, and in contrast to richer countries.
• Energy Subsidy Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa: Experiences and Lessons
  • Published: August 12, 2013
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Trevor Serge Coleridge Alleyne; Mumtaz Hussain
  • Summary: The reform of energy subsidies is an important but challenging issue for sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries. There is a relatively large theoretical and empirical literature on this issue.
• Enhancing Development Assistance to Africa: Lessons from Scaling-Up Scenarios
  • Published: March 8, 2012
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Matthew Gaertner; Laure Redifer; Pedro Conceição; Rafael A Portillo; Luis-Felipe Zanna; Jan Gottschalk; Andrew Berg; Ayodele F. Odusola; et al.
  • Summary: The pace of progress toward achievement of the Millenium Development Goals (MDG) in many sub-Saharan African countries remains too slow to reach targets by 2015, despite significant progress in the late 1990s.
• Evolving Banking Trends in Sub-Saharan Africa: Key Features and Challenges
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Banking in SSA has undergone very significant changes over the last two decades. Financial liberalization and related reforms, upgrades in institutional and more recently the expansion of cross-border banking activities and the rapid development of Pan-African banking groups are signaling greater fi
• Exchange Rate Developments and Policies in the Caucasus and Central Asia
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Since late 2014, exchange rates (ERs) and ER regimes of the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) countries have come under strong pressure. This reflects the decline of oil and other commodity prices, weaker growth in Russia and China, depreciation of the Russian ruble, and appreciation of the U.S.
• External Assessments in Special Cases
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: External Assessments in Special Cases presents the pilot External Balances Assessment methodology developed by IMF staff for estimating current account and exchange rate gaps for a group of advanced and emerging market economies, and discusses modifications to take account of special cases.
• Financial Development in Sub-Saharan Africa: Promoting Inclusive and Sustainable Growth
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper discusses how sub-Saharan Africa’s financial sector developed in the past few decades, compared with other regions.
• Fiscal Risks: Sources, Disclosure, and Management
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper analyzes the main sources of fiscal risks, including from unexpected changes in macroeconomic variables and banking crises, which can have major consequences for countries fiscal and public debt sustainability.
• From Crisis to Convergence: Charting a Course for Portugal
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: In 2011, following years of large-scale external imbalances financed by debt, Portugal’s economy reached a crisis point. To restore economic growth and credibility with international lenders, the country embarked on a difficult path of fiscal adjustment and structural reforms.
• From Stimulus to Consolidation: Revenue and Expenditure Policies in Advanced and Emerging Economies
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper identifies policy tools that could be used for fiscal consolidation in advanced and emerging economies in the years ahead.
• Ireland: Lessons from Its Recovery from the Bank-Sovereign Loop
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Ireland’s major property bubble burst at the same time as the global financial crisis erupted, plunging the country into a severe recession in 2008–10. Public debt climbed rapidly as revenues collapsed and as banks’ rising loan losses increasingly required public support.
• Issuing International Sovereign Bonds: Opportunities and Challenges for Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This African Department Paper examines the rise in international sovereign bonds issued by African frontier economies and recommends policies for potential first-time issuers.
• Learning to Live with Cheaper Oil: Policy Adjustment in MENA and CCA Oil-Exporting Countries
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper discusses the challenges posed by low oil prices in the MENA and CCA regions, the adjustment policies adopted so far, and remaining adjustment needs and future risks.
• Libya Beyond the Revolution: Challenges and Opportunities
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: In the aftermath of the revolution of 2011, Libya faces the complex task of rebuilding its economy, infrastructure, and institutions, and responding to the demands of the population, especially for improved governance.
• Make Investment Scaling-Up Work in Benin: A Macro-Fiscal Analysis
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper conducts a systematic growth and fiscal analysis to determine: (1) the growth potential of Benin’s ambitious scaling-up of investment, and (2) how the government can generate the necessary fiscal space needed to increase investment without jeopardizing Benin’s solid macroeconomic performa
• Making Senegal a Hub for West Africa: Reforming the State, Building to the Future
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This Departmental Paper takes stock of Senegal’s achievements in the past few years under IMF-supported programs and identifies key reform pillars for the future.
• Mali: Achieving Strong and Inclusive Growth with Macroeconomic Stability
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This note studies Mali’s performance in poverty reduction by analyzing household data from surveys in 2001, 2006 and 2009–10. Mali’s share of poor households has decreased substantially during the past decade.
• Managing Global Growth Risks and Commodity Price Shocks: Vulnerabilities and Policy Challenges for Low-Income Countries: Vulnerabilities and Policy Challenges for Low-Income Countries
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: As part of its work to help low-income countries manage volatility, the IMF has developed an analytical framework for assessing vulnerabilities and emerging risks that arise from changes in the external environment.
• Managing Volatile Capital Flows: Experiences and Lessons for Sub-Saharan African Frontier Markets
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: During the past three years the frontier markets of sub-Saharan Africa have received growing amounts of portfolio capital flows, with heightened interest from foreign investors.
• Monetary Issues in the Middle East and North Africa Region: A Policy Implementation Handbook for Central Bankers
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper documents the main themes covered in two seminars (December 2011 and September 2012) on monetary policy and implementation at the IMF—Middle East Center for Economics and Finance, and includes country case studies.
• Monitoring and Managing Fiscal Risks in the East African Community
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper takes stock of the main fiscal risks facing the EAC partner countries. These include macroeconomic shocks, and specific risks, such as the financial performance of the public enterprises, large infrastructure projects, PPPs, and pension funds.
• Mozambique Rising: Building a New Tomorrow
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This publication highlights Mozambique’s remarkably strong growth over the two decades since the end of the civil war in 1992, as well as the major challenges that remain for the country to rise out of poverty and further its economic development.
• Pan-African Banks: Opportunities and Challenges for Cross-Border Oversight
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Pan-African banks are expanding rapidly across the continent, creating cross-border networks, and having a systemic presence in the banking sectors of many Sub-Saharan African countries.
• Paraguay: Addressing the Stagnation and Instability Trap
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Paraguay: Addressing the Stagnation and Instability Trap provides an overview of the analytical insights and policy challenges that a country faces while on the path to sustained growth with stability.
• Responding to Shocks and Maintaining Stability in the West African Economic and Monetary Union
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: The West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU), like other monetary unions, faces a number of challenges in dealing with macroeconomic shocks. The region experiences a large number of exogenous shocks: climate-related (e.g.
• Restoring Sustainability in a Changing Global Environment: Options for Swaziland
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: The Kingdom of Swaziland (hereinafter “Swaziland”) is a small, open economy bordering Mozambique and South Africa with a population of 1.1 million people.
• Saudi Arabia: Tackling Emerging Economic Challenges to Sustain Strong Growth
  • Published: March 18, 2015
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Ahmed I Al-Darwish; Naif Alghaith; Alberto Behar; Tim Callen; Pragyan Deb; Amgad Hegazy; Padamja Khandelwal; Malika Pant; et al.
  • Summary: Saudi Arabia: Tackling Emerging Economic Challenges to Sustain Strong Growth
• Senegal: Achieving High and Inclusive Growth While Preserving Fiscal Sustainability
  • Published: October 22, 2013
  • Series: Departmental Papers
  • Authors: Alexei P Kireyev; Gaston K Mpatswe
  • Summary: Senegal’s growth has been sluggish in recent years with implications for poverty reduction. Average growth was relatively strong in 1995–2005 and accompanied by a large drop in poverty incidence. Due partly to a series of exogenous shocks, growth decreased to an average of 3.3 percent in 2006–11.
• Senegal: Financial Depth and Macrostability
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This enhanced review of Senegal’s financial sector is one of several pilot reviews called for by the Executive Board in May 2012.
• Strategies for Fiscal Consolidation in the Post-Crisis World
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: In response to the global financial crisis, governments provided substantial support to the financial and other key sectors. Although this cushioned the adverse effects of the crisis, it is necessary now to articulate a strategy to ensure the sustainability of public finances.
• Strengthening the West African Economic and Monetary Union: The Role of Fiscal and Market Institutions in Economic Stabilization
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) countries face a well-known dilemma between the need to provide shock-smoothing mechanisms and the lack of adequate mechanisms to do so. WAEMU countries are subject to frequent and, to a large extent, asymmetric shocks.
• Subsidy Reform in the Middle East and North Africa: Recent Progress and Challenges Ahead
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries price subsidies are common, especially on food and fuels. However, these are neither well targeted nor cost effective as a social protection tool, often benefiting mainly the better off instead of the poor and vulnerable.
• Suriname: Toward Stability and Growth
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper analyzes the economic growth and stability in Suriname. The paper highlights that in recent years, the outlook has turned substantively more positive.
• Sustaining more Inclusive Growth in the Republic of Congo
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: The Republic of Congo has seen dramatic improvement in its debt situation since 2010, following debt relief through the IMF and World Bank Heavily Indebted Poor Countries/Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative.
• Taking Stock of Monetary and Exchange Rate Regimes in Emerging Europe
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: 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.
• Tanzania: The Story of an African Transition
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This volume documents Tanzania’s remarkable turnaround from severe economic distress in 1985, and reviews the economic policies that twenty years later contributed to a successful reversal.
• The Caribbean: Enhancing Economic Integration
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: The Caribbean has made substantial progress in recent years in implementing economic reforms, both at the national and regional level.
• The Caucasus and Central Asia: Transitioning to Emerging Markets
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: The countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) have recorded significant macroeconomic achievements since independence. These countries have grown more rapidly-—on average by 7 percent over 1996–2011—-than those in many other regions of the world and poverty has declined.
• The Crisis and Miss Emily's Perceptions
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: The Crisis and Miss Emily's Perceptions draws an analogy between the theme and the characters in Faulkner's short story "A Rose for Emily" and the global financial crisis.
• The Mystery of Missing Real Spillovers in Southern Africa: Some Facts and Possible Explanations
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: Anecdotal evidence suggests that the economies of South Africa and its neighbors (Botswana, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, Swaziland, and Zimbabwe) are tightly integrated with each other. There are important institutional linkages.
• The Spillover Effects of Russia’s Economic Slowdown on Neighboring Countries
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: In the face of sharply lower oil prices and geopolitical tensions and sanctions, economic activity in Russia decelerated in late 2014, resulting in negative spillovers on Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and, to a lesser extent, on Baltic countries.
• Toward a Monetary Union in the East African Community: Asymmetric Shocks, Exchange Rates, and Risk-Sharing Mechanisms
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper examines how susceptible East African Community (EAC) economies are to asymmetric shocks, assesses the value of the exchange rate as a shock absorber for these countries, and reviews adjustment mechanisms that would help ensure a successful experience under a common currency.
• Toward New Horizons: Arab Economic Transformation amid Political Transition
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: <p>The changing political landscape in the Arab world has created opportunities for economic transformation by tackling long-standing economic issues. Nevertheless, three years after the onset of political transition, implementing necessary economic policies has proven to be challenging.
• Trade Integration and Global Value Chains in Sub-Saharan Africa: In Pursuit of the Missing Link
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This analysis of the extent of trade integration of sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries in the global economy as well as within the region over the 1995–2013 period focuses on four key concepts: (1) trade openness, captured by import and export flows; (2) the centrality in the global and regional tr
• Understanding Revenue Administration: An Initial Data Analysis Using the Revenue Administration Fiscal Information Tool
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: During the past few years, the Fiscal Affairs Department (FAD) has developed the Revenue Administration Fiscal Information Tool (RA-FIT), a tax and customs data gathering initiative.
• Unlocking Female Employment Potential in Europe: Drivers and Benefits
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: With an aging population and declining productivity growth, Europe faces serious challenges to raising its output growth. Adding to these challenges are the various gender gaps in the labor market.
• Walking a Fine Line: Public Investment Scaling-Up and Debt Sustainability in Burkina Faso
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: This paper analyzes the macroeconomics of scaling up public investment in Burkina Faso under alternative financing options, including through foreign aid and a combination of tax adjustment and borrowing.
• West African Economic and Monetary Union: Financial Depth and Macrostability
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: The financial system in the WAEMU remains largely bank-based. The banking sector comprises 106 banks and 13 financial institutions, which together hold more than 90 percent of the financial system’s assets (about 54 percent of GDP at end-2011). Five banks account for 50 percent of banking assets.
• Who's Driving Whom? Analyzing External and Intra-Regional Linkages in the Americas
  • Published: December 31, 2016
  • Summary: In a global economy beset by concerns over a growth recession, financial volatility, and rising inflation, countries in the Western Hemisphere have been among the few bright spots in recent years.