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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Jamaica: Request for an Arrangement Under the Precautionary Liquidity Line and Request for an Arrangement Under the Resilience and Sustainability Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; Staff Statement; and Statement by the Executive Director for Jamaica
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
Jamaica has built a strong track record of investing in institutions and prioritizing macroeconomic stability. This aided the country to adapt to the difficult global environment of the past few years. The authorities provided targeted support to the economy during the pandemic but promptly scaled it back as conditions normalized. Similarly, in the wake of the war in Ukraine, domestic food and energy prices were left to adjust to shifts in international markets while targeted support was provided to the poor. The economy is expected to continue its post-COVID recovery, with inflation returning to the central bank’s target range by end-2023. The outlook is subject to downside risks from potential new COVID waves, higher commodity prices, a global slowdown, and tighter than expected global financial conditions.
Keywords:
staff appraisal; RSF policy reform measure; climate priority; transition risk; risk financing Policy; Climate change; Natural disasters; Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); Global; Caribbean
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Republic of Madagascar: Technical Assistance Report-Government Finance Statistics Mission
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.
"Please note the report is only available in French" This technical assistance (TA) mission on Government Finance Statistics (GFS) was conducted during November 14-25, 2022. The main purpose of the mission was to review the progress made by the authorities in implementing previous TA recommendations and provide further support to strengthen the compilation and dissemination of GFS in line with international standards set out in the Government Finance Statistics Manual 2014 (GFSM 2014).
Keywords:
Government Finance Statistics Expenditure Public Sector
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Angola: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
Selected Issues
Keywords:
SDG progress; D. SDG performance; financing framework; growth disorder; guarantee scheme; Credit; Sustainable Development Goals (SDG); Health care spending; Total expenditures; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Angola: 2022 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Angola
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
Angola achieved macroeconomic stabilization amid a very difficult environment in 2020 and growth began to recover in 2021. The recovery picked up pace in 2022, aided by high oil prices. President João Lourenço was reelected in August 2022. Angola continues to face significant challenges, including debt vulnerabilities and the need to diversify the economy as oil production declines over the long term. The authorities’ reform agenda, including their upcoming 2023–27 National Development Plan, is focused on these challenges.
Keywords:
staff BOP projection; staff appraisal; asset declaration regime; governance reform; reform agenda; Oil prices; Credit; Global
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Food Insecurity in Nigeria: Food Supply Matters: Nigeria
Mr. Alun H. Thomas
and
Ms. Rima A Turk
Against the backdrop of high international food and fertilizer prices, this paper discusses food insecurity in Nigeria, investigates its drivers in a cross-country setting, and assesses the role of policies. Using two proxies for food security, we find that high per capita consumption, high yields and low food inflation support food security. Cross-country estimates of yields and production provided by the FAO/OECD reveal that use of inputs is lower in Nigeria than in other countries, and that policies to raise crop yields positively correlate with better food security conditions. The paper also uses detailed domestic commodity price indices to assess linkages with international prices and the role of import bans. Central bank policies for funding agriculture and import bans have not managed to stimulate agricultural output nor moderated the impact of international food prices. Rather, policies should focus on use of inputs that are severely underused in Nigeria as elsewhere in SSA.
Keywords:
Food insecurity; agriculture; yields; inputs; inflation support food security; food price inflation; vegetable oil; inflation differential; food inflation; food category; food import ratio; food consumption; food availability; food import reliance; Food security; Food prices; Consumption; Agricultural commodities; Food imports; Global
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Nigeria’s Tax Revenue Mobilization: Lessons from Successful Revenue Reform Episodes: Nigeria
Il Jung
This paper has identified four episodes of large and sustained revenue mobilizations in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and found common lessons from the episodes. Although there is no one-size-fits-all strategy, we can find a tax reform path suitable to Nigeria’s circumstances. Based on these cross-country experiences, this paper recommends: (i) implementing a package reform of tax administration and tax policy measures; (ii) focusing mainly on indirect tax (VAT and excise) reforms and tax incentive rationalizations; (iii) undertaking tax administration measures for improving compliance by strengthening taxpayer segmentation and automation; and (iv) launching social dialogue with key stakeholders as well as high-level political commitment.
Keywords:
undertaking tax administration; tax revenue mobilization; package reform; Nigeria's tax reform; tax incentive rationalization; Excises; Value-added tax; Consumption taxes; Tax administration core functions; Sub-Saharan Africa
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Nigeria—Fostering Financial Inclusion through Digital Financial Services: Nigeria
Torsten Wezel
and
Mr. Jack J Ree
Financial inclusion in Nigeria has had undeniable successes, with the onboarding of residents to the banking sector consistently progressing. But the overall exclusion rates continue to exceed official targets, not least due to low financial literacy. Going forward, Nigeria’s financial inclusion strategy should more systematically leverage rapidly developing digital instruments. Uptake of digital financial services, notably mobile money, is still lower than in peer countries, and overcoming this would require improving digital financial literacy, upgrading digital infrastructure, and promoting incubation and sound practices of fintech firms. Nigeria’s CBDC also has an enabling potential if accompanied by a comprehensive package of supportive policies.
Keywords:
Central Bank Digital Currency; digital financial services; financial inclusion; financial literacy; mobile money; Nigeria's CBDC; exclusion rate; account ownership; bank account; money transfer; Mobile banking; Fintech; Sub-Saharan Africa; Africa
Cover FinTech Notes
Trust Bridges and Money Flows: A Digital Marketplace to Improve Cross-Border Payments
Mr. Tobias Adrian
,
Mr. Rodney Garratt
,
Mr. Dong He
, and
Mr. Tommaso Mancini Griffoli
Cross-border payments are expensive, slow, and opaque. These problems reflect multiple frictions, many of which boil down to limited trust among counterparties. Trust plays a central role in exchanging credit-based money. End users need to trust the issuers of money, and issuers must trust users to satisfy financial integrity requirements. Transactions are possible only where trust links exist. Interoperability between different forms of money can thus be conceptualized as the network of trusted links necessary for transactions. Traditionally, across borders, trust links involve exclusive bilateral credit relationships among correspondent banks. However, the fixed costs required to build these links foster an expensive and concentrated system. This paper interprets different payment arrangements in terms of the implied trust structures. It discusses how the tokenization of money alters trust links and allows for a potentially more efficient market structure to exchange money. The paper ends with a suggested global marketplace to trade tokenized money directly across borders.
Keywords:
cross-border payments; cross-border payment; tokenized money; liquidity swap lines; money flow; Tokenized money; issuers of money; marketplace model; trust relationship; Currencies; Digital currencies; Currency markets; Correspondent banking; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Unbearable Costs: When Is Inflation Impeding Job Creation? Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa
Ibrahima Camara
,
Rasmané Ouedraogo
, and
Mr. Amadou N Sy
Covid-19 and war-induced commodity price fluctuations, and broadening price pressures have led to a surge in inflation in many sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries. To adjust to increasing costs, firms have resorted to several measures including shuttering offices, reducing businesses, laying off, and freezing hiring, thus putting at risk job creation and raising concerns of youth unemployment. This paper explores the effects of inflation on private employment growth in SSA using a large firm -level dataset from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys. We find a non-linear relationship between inflation and job creation in SSA, with job creation being negatively correlated with inflation rate when the latter is above 14 percent. This finding holds regardless of the sector of activities of firms and the exchange rate regime. In addition, the paper finds some differential effects based on the type of products. An increase in fuel prices tends to be more detrimental to job creation than food prices. The study also provides evidence that the state of implementation of structural reforms matters. The results show that inflation reduces job opportunities mostly in countries with bad or no structural reforms.
Keywords:
Inflation; Jobs; reforms; sub-Saharan Africa; broadening price pressure; evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa; Survey dataset; firm assessment; rising prices; Job creation; Exchange rate arrangements; Employment
Cover IMF Working Papers
Capital Account Liberalization and Wage Inequality: Evidence from Firm Level Data
Kodjovi M. Eklou
and
Shakeba Foster
Firms play an important role in shaping income inequality at the aggregated country level, given that wages represent a significant proportion of household income. We investigate the distributional consequences of capital account liberalization, relying on firm level data to explore the implications for betweenfirms earning inequality in ASEAN5 countries over the period 1995-2019. We find that between-firms wage dispersion alone, accounts for a nontrivial proportion of the variation in the market Gini. Our empirical findings show that capital account liberalization increases between-firms wage inequality, as wages grow faster at initially high-paying firms and slow-down at firms at the lower portion of the wage distribution. These results are robust to a battery of robustness checks. Further, the directions and categories of capital account liberalization matter as results are pronounced for inflow liberalization and equity capital flows. We also show that capital account liberalization induces an increase in Profit-to-Wage ratios. Furthermore, the impact depends on country characteristics (wage setting institutions, the level of financial development and the size of the informal sector) as well as industry characteristics (export orientation and external finance dependence).
Keywords:
Wage Inequality; Firm heterogeneity; Capital Account Liberalization; wage dispersion; inflow liberalization; Shakeba foster; baseline result; Income inequality; Wages; Total factor productivity; Wage adjustments