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Business and Economics > Banks and Banking

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 31 items for :

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Cover Regional Economic Outlook, Middle East and Central Asia, October 2023
Regional Economic Outlook, Middle East and Central Asia, October 2023
Building Resilience and Fostering Sustainable Growth
International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept.

Abstract

Across the Middle East and Central Asia, the combined effects of global headwinds, domestic challenges, and geopolitical risks weigh on economic momentum, and the outlook is highly uncertain. Growth is set to slow this year in the Middle East and North Africa region, driven by lower oil production, tight policy settings in emerging market and middle-income economies, the conflict in Sudan, and other country-specific factors. In the Caucasus and Central Asia, although migration, trade, and financial inflows following Russia’s war in Ukraine continue to support economic activity, growth is set to moderate slightly this year. Looking ahead, economic activity in the Middle East and North Africa region is expected to improve in 2024 and 2025 as some factors weighing on growth this year gradually dissipate, including the temporary oil production cuts. But growth is expected to remain subdued over the forecast horizon amid persistent structural hurdles. In the Caucasus and Central Asia, economic growth is projected to slow next year and over the medium term as the boost to activity from real and financial inflows from Russia gradually fades and deep-seated structural challenges remain unsolved. Inflation is broadly easing, in line with globally declining price pressures, although country-specific factors—including buoyant wage growth in some Caucasus and Central Asia countries—and climate-related events continue to make their mark. Despite some improvement since April, the balance of risks to the outlook remains on the downside. In this context, expediting structural reforms is crucial to boost growth and strengthen resilience, while tight monetary and fiscal policies remain essential in several economies to durably bring down inflation and ensure public debt sustainability.

Keywords:
growth; inflation; public debt; external financing; commodity prices; structural reforms; investment; labor productivity; financial stability; stress testing; governance reform; GCC country; credit market reform; government effectiveness; reform package; Policy space; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Credit; Labor force participation; Middle East and Central Asia; Central Asia and the Caucasus; Middle East; North Africa; oil exporter; IMF staff calculation; CCA bank; sovereign-bank nexus; Fiscal stance; Current account balance; Commercial banks; Oil exports; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Switzerland: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper on Switzerland models the evolving behavior of the Swiss franc relative to the world’s major reserve currencies and considers possible reasons for the shifts. Economic fundamentals, including country-partners and currency of denomination of Swiss trade and finance, are likely to affect which currencies the franc co-moves with, although these factors tend to change only slowly. The behavior of the Swiss franc may have also been affected by the global financial crisis and its aftermath, as well as the shift in recent years from synchronized to divergent monetary policies by the major central banks. Identifying reserve currency blocks and the de facto behavior of currencies is an ongoing pursuit. The two dimensions of exchange regimes—the anchor currency (basket) and the degree of exchange rate flexibility—should be identified simultaneously. The implied regimes align well with Switzerland’s de facto exchange rate arrangements and monetary policy frameworks. The approach used in this paper identifies how the franc co-moves with the major reserve currencies but is agnostic about the driving forces behind these moves.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; wage; franc; currency; SNB; monetary policy; brake rule; wage gap; gap vis-à-vis; liquidity mismatch; long-run wage-productivity relationship; SNB's FX purchase; reserve portfolio; wage Phillips curve; Currencies; Wage gap; Wages; Labor productivity; Real wages; Global; Europe; Eastern Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Market Reforms at the Zero Lower Bound
Matteo Cacciatore
,
Mr. Romain A Duval
,
Giuseppe Fiori
, and
Mr. Fabio Ghironi
This paper studies the impact of product and labor market reforms when the economy faces major slack and a binding constraint on monetary policy easing. such as the zero lower bound. To this end, we build a two-country model with endogenous producer entry, labor market frictions, and nominal rigidities. We find that while the effect of market reforms depends on the cyclical conditions under which they are implemented, the zero lower bound itself does not appear to matter. In fact, when carried out in a recession, the impact of reforms is typically stronger when the zero lower bound is binding. The reason is that reforms are inflationary in our structural model (or they have no noticeable deflationary effects). Thus, contrary to the implications of reduced-form modeling of product and labor market reforms as exogenous reductions in price and wage markups, our analysis shows that there is no simple across-the-board relationship between market reforms and the behavior of real marginal costs. This significantly alters the consequences of the zero (or any effective) lower bound on policy rates.
Keywords:
WP; product market; Employment protection; Monetary policy; Producer entry; Product market regulation; Structural reforms; Unemployment benefits; Zero lower bound; product market deregulation; present discounted value; nominal interest rate; physical capital; product market reform; labor market dynamics; Consumption; Commodity markets; Labor productivity; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Republic of Latvia: Selected Issues Paper
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
The aim of this paper is to examine selected issues related to Latvia’s economic development. Latvia experienced a large macroeconomic adjustment in the aftermath of the crisis in 2007. The adjustment was characterized by internal devaluation via a combination of wage restraint and productivity gains. Latvia’s creditless recovery has taken unusually long to turn compared to international experience. Although lack of credit has not undermined recovery so far, support from the financial sector will be crucial for its continuation going forward. Emphasis on resuscitating credit growth is key to maintaining recovery. Focus should be on facilitating access to credit for small- and medium-sized enterprises and first-time borrowers, where market failures are the largest.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; firm; Latvia; lending; export orientation; firms TFP; firm level difference; NRD bank; credit growth; risk model; firm productivity; oriented firm; Credit; Total factor productivity; Productivity; Labor productivity; Bank credit; Baltics; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Post-Conflict Recovery: Institutions, Aid, or Luck?
Mr. Antonio David
,
Mr. Fabiano Rodrigues Rodrigues Bastos
, and
Marshall Mills
This paper identifies the factors linked to cross-country differentials in growth performance in the aftermath of social conflict for 30 sub-Saharan African countries using panel data techniques. Our results show that changes in the terms of trade are the most important correlate of economic performance in post-conflict environments. This variable is typically associated with an increase in the marginal probability of positive economic performance by about 30 percent. Institutional quality emerges as the second most important factor. Foreign aid is shown to have very limited ability to explain differentials in growth performance, and other policy variables such as trade openness are not found to have a statistically significant effect. The results suggest that exogenous factors ("luck") are an important factor in post-conflict recovery. They also highlight the importance in post-conflict settings of policies to mitigate the macroeconomic impact of terms of trade volatility (including countercyclical macroeconomic policies and innovative financing instruments) and of policies to promote export diversification.
Keywords:
WP; terms of trade variable; executive constraints variable; conflict country; country policy; terms of trade volatility; economic growth; conflict; sub-Saharan Africa; terms of trade shock; terms of trade movement; Terms of trade; Real interest rates; Human capital; Estimation techniques
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
San Marino: Financial Sector Assessment Program-Technical Note on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism
International Monetary Fund
The level of domestically generated proceeds of serious crime in San Marino is low. However, San Marino is vulnerable to money laundering (ML) of proceeds of crimes committed abroad. The Sammarinese financial sector, until recently, was characterized by a number of features that have created a favorable environment to ML. San Marino has made considerable progress in bringing its legal and institutional framework in line with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations. Banks and financial institutions have started implementing the new Antimoney Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) requirements, with mixed results.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; customer; AML; CFT; firm; bank; legacy customer; risk profile; fiduciary firm; risk profiling requirement; risk customer; customer identity; a number of customer; FIA instructions; beneficial owner; bank secrecy; FATF AML; Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); Human capital; Legal support in revenue administration
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Cyprus: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund
The financial sector is mostly comprised of the banking sector, which largely provides insurance and asset management services. A large part of banking system assets relates to subsidiaries and branches of foreign banks. The banking sector poses risks by virtue of its size and concentration. The Cypriot banking system has weathered the crisis better than many other euro zone area countries. Significant headwinds for the overall banking system are expected, and the cooperative banks appear particularly vulnerable.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; Cyprus; bank; Cypriot bank supervisor; labor productivity growth; current account; capital threshold; Cyprus economy; parent bank; market share; Cypriot labor market; Commercial banks; Output gap; Cooperative banks; Nonperforming loans; Potential output; Global; Eastern Europe; Southern Europe
Cover Policy Papers
Implementation of the Joint Management Action Plan on Bank-Fund Collaboration
International Monetary Fund
In light of the multilateral effort to ensure the adequacy of the financial resources available to the International Monetary Fund (the “Fund”), and with a view to supporting the Fund’s ability to provide timely and effective balance of payments assistance to its members, the Swedish Riksbank (“Riksbank”) agrees to lend to the Fund an SDRdenominated amount up to the equivalent of EUR 2.47 billion, on the terms and conditions set out in this paper.
Keywords:
PP; bank; staff; Fund staff; Bank-Fund collaboration; JMAP; Fund management; Fund team; Fund respondent; Fund mandates overlap; a number of World Bank; Fund shareholder; Bank-Fund program; Fund financial support; area department; lead economist; Government debt management; Global financial crisis of 2008-2009; Debt sustainability analysis; Human capital; Global
Cover IMF Staff Papers
IMF Staff Papers, Volume 56, No. 2
International Monetary Fund. Research Dept.
China’s growth performance since the start of economic reforms in 1978 has been impressive, but the gains have not been distributed equally across provinces. We use a nonparametric approach to analyze the variation in labor productivity growth across China’s provinces. This approach imposes less structure on the data than the standard growth accounting framework and allows for a breakdown of labor productivity into efficiency gains, technological progress, and capital deepening. We have the following results. First, we find that on average capital deepening accounts for about 75 percent of total labor productivity growth, while efficiency and technological improvements account for about 7 and 18 percent, respectively. Second, technical change is not neutral. Third, whereas improvement in efficiency contributes to convergence in labor productivity between provinces, technical change contributes to productivity disparity across provinces. Finally, we find that foreign direct investment has a positive and significant effect on efficiency growth and technical progress.
Keywords:
SP; market risk aversion; yen carry trade; financial market liquidity; links carry trades; United States-Japan; financial market condition; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Labor productivity; Financial statements; Spillovers; Capital productivity; Global; Middle East; Caribbean; Asia and Pacific; East Asia
Cover IMF Working Papers
Why isn't South Africa Growing Faster? a Comparative Approach
Luc Eyraud
The purpose of this paper is to examine factors that have constrained South Africa's growth since the end of apartheid by comparing its GDP components and its saving and investment performance with those of 10 faster-growing countries. The study finds that sluggish investment has undermined growth since 1996 and that the underinvestment is in part explained by limited saving. Thus, over the last decade, interactions between investment, saving, and production may have perpetuated slow growth in South Africa.
Keywords:
WP; GDP; rate; saving; investment; growth; emerging countries; saving performance; GDP growth; saving rate; real interest rate; growth in South Africa; Private savings; Real interest rates; Total factor productivity; Labor productivity; Africa