International Monetary Fund imprint: 1365 books

The Eastern Caribbean Economic and Currency Union (OECS/ECCU) is one of four currency unions in the world. As in other parts of the world in the aftermath of the global economic and financial crisis, the region is at a crossroads, facing the major challenges of creating jobs, making growth more inclusive,...

Over the past decade, rising oil prices have translated into high levels of public investment in most MENA and CCA oil exporters. This has prompted questions about the efficiency of public investment in generating growth and closing infrastructure gaps, as well as concerns about fiscal vulnerabilities....

The unprecedented scope and intensity of the global financial crisis and the subsequent large-scale public support of systemically important financial institutions have brought to the fore the moral hazard problems arising when creditors, shareholders, management and customers of such institutions...

This volume, edited by David Folkerts-Landau and Marcel Cassard, consists of papers presented at a conference held in Hong Kong SAR that was hosted by the IMF and the Hong Kong Monetary Authority. It focuses on a wide range of issues confronting policymakers in managing their sovereign assets and liabilities...

U.S. household consumption declined sharply in late 2008, marking a departure from the trend of a steady increase in U.S. consumption as a share of income since the 1980s. Combining econometric and simulation analysis, we estimate that this departure will be sustained beyond the crisis: the U.S. household...

To assess the overall impact of the financial regulatory initiatives on U.S., European, and Japanese financial institutions and their respective economies. It will examine the existing analyses on the impact of the regulatory initiatives by the financial industry (financial analysts, industry associations,...

The proposed SDN, prepared by a team of MCM/LEG experts, analyses whether bail-in -- defined as a statutory power to recapitalize a distressed SIFI by converting and/or writing down its unsecured debt -- could be a useful complementary tool to other resolution powers. More specifically, the note studies...

This note will provide guidance from a practitioner’s or policymaker’s perspective on how to design fiscal frameworks in natural resource intensive countries. It will lay out principles that should help countries to meet development needs while dealing with the resource revenue volatility, uncertainty, and exhaustibility (intergenerational equity).

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for a disproportionate share of output and employment in Europe but are still highly dependent on bank finance, which dried up or became prohibitively expensive during the crisis. Broader access to alternative, long-term finance through securitization...

The crisis has shifted the policy consensus away from the “benign neglect” view that it is better to pick up the pieces after a bust than try to prevent a real-estate boom in the first place. Yet, a call for a more preventive policy action raises more questions than it provides answers. What kind...

The SDN looks at policies to foster growth in Europe. There is substantial empirical evidence that structural reforms can lift growth markedly in the medium to long term, but the current economic slack and cyclical headwinds argue for a more supportive approach. Policy measures on both the supply...

This paper does two things. First, it articulates what are the main implications of theoretical and empirical research for design of labor market policies and labor market institutions. Second, in this light, the paper analyzes the IMF’s labor market recommendations since the beginning of the crisis, both in general, and more specifically in program countries