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Business and Economics > Banks and Banking

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 328 items for :

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Cover Technical Assistance Reports
Botswana: Technical Assistance Report-Enhancing the Forecasting Policy and Analysis System at the Bank of Botswana
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
At the request of Bank of Botswana, a Technical Assistance mission from the Monetary and Capital Markets (MCM) Department visited Gaborone, Botswana during May 27–31, 2024, to assist the authorities in enhancing their forecasting and policy analysis system (FPAS). The mission assessed and advised on both near-term and medium-term forecasting tools and models currently used by the Bank of Botswana. The mission team helped create a new centralized database and introduced a new flexible platform with a suite of models that expands and complements existing near-term forecasting models. The mission team also improved the medium-term forecasting framework by reviewing model calibration, introducing a fiscal block, and recommending further adjustments.
Keywords:
Monetary Policy; Forecasting and Policy Analysis System; Data Management; Near-term and Medium-term Forecasting Tools; Botswana.; IMF's Monetary; medium term forecasting tool; IMF Monetary; policy analysis system; IMF executive directors; Output gap; Infrastructure; Exchange rate arrangements; Central bank policy rate; Exchange rates; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Czech Republic: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
The Czech Republic is evolving from a heavily manufacturing-based, export-oriented hub to a more mature and diversified economy. Non-auto manufacturing, energy, and construction, once important Czech engines of growth, have run out of steam, hampered by decelerating productivity growth, higher energy costs, and sluggish demand. The auto industry has shown resilience so far, but the required transition to electric vehicles and exposure to foreign competition are set to exert significant pressures in the coming years. Higher value-added sectors, including ICT services, are constrained by lack of skilled labor and limited access to capital, undermining their ability to compete in global markets.
Keywords:
currency of the Czech Republic; FSAP update; FSAP participation; services inflation; managing inflation risk; Inflation; Productivity; Labor markets; Central bank policy rate; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Czech Republic: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
2024 Selected Issues
Keywords:
macro News; macroeconomics news; ECB monetary policy surprise; EU TFP frontier; inflation expectation; Automobile industry; Total factor productivity; Productivity; Asset prices; Global; Europe; Eastern Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Republic of South Sudan: Third Review Under the Staff-Monitored Program with Board Involvement-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Republic of South Sudan
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This paper focuses on South Sudan’s Third Review under the Staff-Monitored Program with Board Involvement. Severe spillovers from the conflict in Sudan, including refugee inflows and damages to an oil pipeline, have exacerbated South Sudan’s difficult humanitarian and macroeconomic situation, resulting in an economic slowdown, sharp exchange rate depreciation, high inflation, and higher spending needs against the backdrop of large fiscal revenue losses. Discussions with the South Sudanese authorities during the Third Review of the Staff-Monitored Program with Board Involvement (PMB) focused on re-calibrating macroeconomic policy to address the impact of the external shocks. The authorities remain committed to implementing strong policies and reform measures to restore macroeconomic stability. IMF Management completed the Third review of the PMB with South Sudan. The implementation of commitments taken by the authorities under the Letter of Intent will continue to support macroeconomic stability and debt sustainability. The authorities remain committed to fiscal and monetary prudence and to implementing their medium-term reform agenda.
Keywords:
authorities' priority; government operation; VAT regime; authorities view; reform agenda; Oil production; Quasi-fiscal operations; Oil, gas and mining taxes; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Quarterly Projection Model for the Bank of Ghana: Extensions and Applications
Philip Abradu-Otoo
,
Joseph K. Acquah
,
James Attuquaye
,
Simon Harvey
,
Francis Loloh
,
Shalva Mkhatrishvili
,
Valeriu Nalban
,
Daniel Ngoh
,
Victor Osei
, and
Michael Quansah
The paper documents the latest extensions of the Bank of Ghana’s Quarterly Projection Model (QPM), used regularly to produce policy analysis and forecasts in support of the Bank’s policy processes. The decomposition of GDP allows to separate the agriculture and oil sectors, driven by exogenous and international developments, from non-agriculture non-oil activities, which are more relevant from the central bank’s perspective of assessing the business cycle position. Inter-sectoral price spillovers and their role in the formation of inflation expectations are explicitly accounted, with important policy implications. Specific model applications – including impulse response functions and simulations of shocks that affect agricultural production, e.g., those caused by climate disruptions; and counterfactual simulations to evaluate recent policy choices – highlight the usefulness of the extended QPM in providing a more detailed account of the economic developments, enhance forecast coverage, and broaden its underlying narrative, thus strengthening the BOG’s forward-looking policy framework.
Keywords:
Ghana; Forecasting and Policy Analysis; Quarterly Projection Model; Monetary Policy; Transmission Mechanism; A. impulse response; impulse response function; reaction function; policy analysis; Bank of Ghana's Quarterly Projection Model; price spillover; Inflation; Output gap; Inflation targeting; Real interest rates; Global
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Monetary Policy Issues in the UK: United Kingdom
Agnese Carella
,
Ruo Chen
,
Katherine Dai
,
Gloria Li
,
Ruy Lama
, and
Roland Meeks
After hiking rates 14 consecutive times between December 2021 and August 2023 to arrest above-target inflation, the Bank of England (BoE) has held rates at 5.25 percent since then. As the BoE prepares for easing, this paper examines three concurrent monetary policy questions: (a) how have the macroeconomic and financial effects of BoE monetary tightening during the current cycle compared with experiences in other major advanced economies (AEs), and with previous UK tightening cycles; (b) what is the impact of US Fed decisions on UK monetary transmission, and the attendant implications thereof for BoE communications; and (c) how do model-based predictions of UK monetary policy paths (which seek to stabilize inflation and the output gap) compare with staff’s recommended path in the 2024 Article IV consultation. We find that (a) monetary transmission has largely mirrored previous episodes (and experiences in other major AEs), with the most notable exception of the mortgage channel, which has been slower due to a higher share of fixed-rate mortgages; (b) an outsized impact of Fed announcements on UK financial markets places a premium on BoE communications in a context where the BoE may diverge from the Fed; and (c) optimal rate path predictions are close to staff’s recommended path, although if the BoE attached a high weight to concerns about a prolonged period of above-target inflation leading to de-anchoring of inflation expectations, a slower pace of cuts would be warranted. A technical assistance mission from the IMF's Statistics Department visited Cambodia during April 10-21, 2023, to support the authorities in continuing to improve the compilation and dissemination of government finance statistics (GFS) and public sector debt statistics (PSDS).
Keywords:
Monetary policy; monetary transmission; central bank communications; BoE communications; monetary policy issue; path prediction; issues in the UK; Fed announcement; Inflation; Central bank policy rate; Output gap; Spillovers; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Luxembourg: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; and Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Luxembourg
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
The 2024 Article IV Consultation discusses that Luxembourg’ economy contracted in 2023 despite buoyant consumption, mainly due to weak external demand and residential investment. Inflation is subsiding but underlying measures remain high. Credit growth turned negative as demand dropped and real estate prices declined. The newly elected government has approved a mix of temporary and permanent measures to support purchasing power and housing demand. Gradually easing financial conditions, continuing disinflation and expansionary fiscal policy is expected to help the economy rebound and the financial cycle bottom out. Inflation should decline in 2024, before temporarily increasing in 2025 once administrative price measures expire. The recovery is fragile amid heightened geopolitical tensions. Risks are tilted to the downside, stemming mainly from external demand/supply shocks and a disorderly correction of asset prices, including domestic real estate valuations. Sustained economic growth hinges on raising productivity, which has been stagnant since the Global Financial Crisis. Increasing investment in intangible assets, aligning workers’ skills with the current demands of the economy, reducing administrative burden, and making the wage indexation system more flexible will be key to harnessing productivity gains and bolstering competitiveness.
Keywords:
FATF report; Luxembourg economy; executive board assessment; headline inflation; labor productivity growth; Macroprudential policy; Productivity; Income; Financial Sector Assessment Program; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Monetary Policy with Uncertain Inflation Persistence
Luis Brandão-Marques
,
Roland Meeks
, and
Vina Nguyen
When uncertain about inflation persistence, central banks are well-advised to adopt a robust strategy when setting interest rates. This robust approach, characterized by a "better safe than sorry" philosophy, entails incurring a modest cost to safeguard against a protracted period of deviating inflation. Applied to the post-pandemic period of exceptional uncertainty and elevated inflation, this strategy would have called for a tightening bias. Specifically, a high level of uncertainty surrounding wage, profit, and price dynamics requires a more front-loaded increase in interest rates compared to a baseline scenario which the policymaker fully understands how shocks to those variables are transmitted to inflation and output. This paper provides empirical evidence of such uncertainty and estimates a New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model for the euro area to derive a robust interest rate path for the ECB which serves to illustrate the case for insuring against inflation turning out to have greater persistence.
Keywords:
Robust policy; monetary policy; uncertainty; inflation persistence; wage and price dynamics.; Monetary Policy stance; policy rule parameter; price Persistence; IMF working paper 2024/47; inflation expectation; Inflation; Central bank policy rate; Output gap; Wages; Europe; Central and Eastern Europe; Eastern Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Consequences of Falling Behind the Curve: Inflation Shocks and Policy Delays Under Rational and Behavioral Expectations
Mai Hakamada
and
Carl E. Walsh
Central banks in major industrialized economies were slow to react to the surge in inflation that began in early 2021. The proximate causes of this surge were the supply chain disruptions associated with the easing of COVID restrictions, fiscal policies designed to cushion the economic impact of COVID, and the impact on commodity prices and supply chains of the war in Ukraine. We investigate the consequences of policy delay in responding to inflation shocks. First, using a simple three-period model, we show how policy delay worsens inflation outcomes, but can mitigate or even reverse the output decline that occurs when policy responds without delay. Then, using a calibrated new Keynesian framework and two measures of loss that incorporate a “balanced approach” to weigh inflation and the output gap, we find that loss is monotonically increasing in the length of the delay. Loss is reduced if policy, when it does react, is more aggressive. To investigate whether these results are sensitive to the assumption of rational expectations, we consider cognitive discounting as an alternative assumption about expectations. With cognitive discounting, forward guidance is less powerful and results in a reduction in the costs of delay. Under either assumption about expectations, the costs of a short delay can be eliminated by adopting a less inertial policy rule and a more aggressive response to inflation.
Keywords:
monetary policy; inflation policy delay; behavioral expectations; falling behind the curve; Policy delay; inflation outcome; inflation shock; supply chain disruption; trend inflation; Inflation; Output gap; Rational expectations; Central bank policy rate; Real interest rates
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Domestic and External Drivers of Inflation: The Gambia
Jean-Claude Nachega
,
Glen Kwende
,
Laurent Kemoe
, and
Fidel A Márquez Barroeta
This paper investigates the drivers of headline inflation and the degree of exchange rate passthrough (ERPT) in The Gambia over the period 2014-2023. The analysis highlights the decisive long-term roles of global prices of commodities (food, oil and fertilizer), the exchange rate, and the domestic output gap. The short-run dynamics of inflation points to the roles of global food price and the second-round effects of changes in food prices and the output gap. Monetary policy has the potential to tame inflation in the short run provided the monetary policy rate is adjusted rapidly and boldly. Lastly, there is evidence of an asymmetric ERPT to domestic prices, and the size of currency depreciation matters for inflation dynamics.
Keywords:
Inflation; monetary policy rate; oil prices; food prices; fertilizer prices; exchange rates; inflation dynamics; inflation point; drivers of inflation; points to the role; Output gap; Central bank policy rate; Global