Western Hemisphere > Argentina

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Juliette Caucheteux
,
Jonas Nauerz
, and
Svetlana Vtyurina
Extreme weather has profoundly affected countries across South America (SA), given the importance of the agricultural sector for the economies. However, these effects have not yet been properly measured. In our study, we construct a unique dataset of high-frequency satellite data on temperature, precipitation, and a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) that proxies the agricultural yield in selected countries. In particular, we then examine the effect of droughts on agricultural yields (soy output) and find that they have a significant negative impact and that there is heterogeneity in the response across countries. While insurance could help protect farmers against severe losses, coverage in the region is low, and barriers remain high. Building on existing literature and using a calibrated structural model, we highlight the benefits of insurance for Total Factor Productivity (TFP) and offer some recommendations for its expansion.
Peter Lindner
,
Ananthakrishnan Prasad
, and
Jean-Marie Masse
This paper reviews the main types of credit enhancement approaches used to support climate debt issuances by EMDE borrowers. Fragmentation on the part of the providers of credit enhancements was identified as a major factor impeding scalability of credit-enhanced debt. The acceptance of credit-enhanced debt is also hampered by the structural characteristics of the capital markets, especially the fragmentation of the investor base. To place significant amounts of credit-enhanced climate debt with private sector investors, MDBs, DFIs, and other stakeholders should focus on simple and replicable debt structures. Securitizations and investment funds could help fund private sector climate investments in EMDEs.
International Monetary Fund. Independent Evaluation Office
Since the 2024 Spring Meetings, the IEO finalized the evaluation on The Evolving Application of the IMF’s Mandate and launched a new evaluation on The IMF and Climate Change. The IEO has continued its progress on the ongoing evaluations of The IMF’s Exceptional Access Policy and the IMF Advice on Fiscal Policy. The IEO will develop an Evaluation Policy that addresses the recommendations of the Fourth External Evaluation of the IEO, which was concluded in July 2024.
Daniel Garcia-Macia
,
Waikei R Lam
, and
Anh D. M. Nguyen
Managing the climate transition presents policymakers with a tradeoff between achieving climate goals, fiscal sustainability, and political feasibility, which calls for a fiscal balancing act with the right mix of policies. This paper develops a tractable dynamic general equilibrium model to quantify the fiscal impacts of various climate policy packages aimed at reaching net zero emissions by mid-century. Our simulations show that relying primarily on spending measures to deliver on climate ambitions will be costly, possibly raising debt by 45-50 percent of GDP by 2050. However, a balanced mix of carbon-pricing and spending-based policies can deliver on net zero with a much smaller fiscal cost, limiting the increase in public debt to 10-15 percent of GDP by 2050. Carbon pricing is central not only as an effective tool for emissions reduction but also as a revenue source. Delaying carbon pricing action could increase costs, especially if less effective measures are scaled up to meet climate targets. Technology spillovers can reduce the costs but bottlenecks in green investment could unwind the gains and slow the transition.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This paper presents Argentina’s Fourth Review under the Extended Arrangement under the Extended Fund Facility (EFF), Requests for Modification of Performance Criteria, Waiver for Nonobservance of Performance Criteria, and Financing Assurances Review. Achieving the 2023 primary fiscal deficit target of 1.9 percent of gross domestic product remains essential to support disinflation and reserve accumulation, alleviate financing pressures, and strengthen debt sustainability. Timely implementation of high-quality measures, particularly improving the targeting of energy subsidies and social assistance, will help offset lower export taxes due to the drought, protect priority infrastructure and social spending, and secure the fiscal targets. “Real interest rates should remain sufficiently positive to tackle high inflation and support demand for peso assets. On the domestic financing front, prudent efforts will be needed to mitigate near-term rollover risks and mobilize net financing, while limiting the build-up of vulnerabilities and protecting debt sustainability.
Charles Cohen
,
S. M. Ali Abbas
,
Anthony Myrvin
,
Tom Best
,
Mr. Peter Breuer
,
Hui Miao
,
Ms. Alla Myrvoda
, and
Eriko Togo
The COVID-19 crisis may lead to a series of costly and inefficient sovereign debt restructurings. Any such restructurings will likely take place during a period of great economic uncertainty, which may lead to protracted negotiations between creditors and debtors over recovery values, and potentially even relapses into default post-restructuring. State-contingent debt instruments (SCDIs) could play an important role in improving the outcomes of these restructurings.
International Monetary Fund. Communications Department
Finance and Development
International Monetary Fund. Communications Department
This paper discusses that from shifting demographics to climate change, Southeast Asia confronts a host of challenges. Summoning them will require both resilience and flexibility. Advances in artificial intelligence, including robotics, together with innovations such as 3-D printing and new composite materials, will transform manufacturing processes, making them less labor-intensive while creating opportunities for new products. This will enable new ways of making things and change the drivers of competitiveness. There will be indirect effects as well. For example, aircraft manufacturers, taking advantage of new composite materials such as carbon fibers, have developed a class of superlong-haul aircraft that could bring more tourists to Southeast Asia as relatively cheap point-to-point travel options emerge. The region should still enjoy synergies from globalization and other modes of economic integration, but the form and shape of such integration could change. For Southeast Asia, the next couple of decades could prove exhilarating in terms of the opportunities presented by technology and global growth, but also tumultuous because of the continuing risks, such as those posed by an unreformed and unstable international financial architecture. There clearly is much hard work to be done. Policymakers still have not gotten everything right, but they are heading in the right direction.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper analyzes Nicaragua’s social security system, which is projected to run out of liquid reserves by 2019, several years earlier than anticipated. To avoid burdening the budget, reforms to the system are urgently needed. A deep actuarial, economic, and operational analysis is needed to design a comprehensive reform program. Such a program must ensure that the defined-benefit, pay-as-you-go system can sustain itself for another generation of workers and that improved health care benefits can be maintained. A politically acceptable, pragmatic solution appears within reach. However, the authorities should act quickly to avoid a costly bailout of the system.
International Monetary Fund. External Relations Dept.
Climate Change: Stimulating a Green Recovery” looks at the global problem of climate change. With the world apparently on an economic recovery path, policymakers are looking at ways to limit the impact of climate change through broad international action. One of the challenges is to balance actions to mitigate climate change with measures to stimulate growth and prosperity. This issue of F&D also examines a variety of issues raised by the crisis—including the future of macroeconomics, explored by William White, former chief economist at the Bank for International Settlements, and the longer-term impact of the crisis on the United States, the world’s largest economy. Our “People in Economics” profile spotlights Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Laureate who “can’t get any respect at home.” We also look at the need for rebalancing growth in Asia, which is leading the world out of recession, and we interview five influential Asians on the region’s fragile rebound. We turn our “Straight Talk” column over to Barbara Stocking of Oxfam, who makes a forceful case for stepping up help to the most vulnerable around the world. “Data Spotlight” looks at trends in inflation, which has fallen into negative territory in some countries during the crisis, and in “Point-Counterpoint,” two experts discuss the pros and cons of remittances—funds repatriated by migrant workers to family and friends back home. “Back to Basics” gives a primer on international trade.