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Business and Economics > Public Finance

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 67 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Remittances x
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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Samoa: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
2024 Selected Issues
Keywords:
money transfer operator; sectoral risk assessment; Australia labour mobility; transaction report; remittance corridor; risk remittance product; Remittances; Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); Medium taxpayer office; Correspondent banking; Financial sector; Australia and New Zealand; Pacific Islands; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Macroeconomic and Welfare Benefits of Building Resilience in Disaster-Prone Developing Countries
Yehenew Endegnanew
,
Rafael D Goncalves
,
Samuel Mann
,
Marina Mendes Tavares
, and
Harold Zavarce
Natural disasters often have high economic costs, setting back years of investment in developing countries. This paper develops a multi-sector DSGE model to study the macroeconomic and welfare implications of financing resilience-building using different fiscal instruments. The model includes developing countries’ macroeconomic and distributional features, such as a large unproductive rural sector, an incomplete credit market, and an informal sector. The results indicate that investing in resilience capital in a disaster-prone country improves welfare despite its high economic cost, but the financial instrument used to mobilize revenue matters.
Keywords:
Resilient investment; natural disasters; macroeconomics; fiscal sustainability.; implications of financing resilience-building; resilient capital; welfare implication; revenue matter; credit market; Human capital; Consumption; Energy sector; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Remittances in Times of Uncertainty: Understanding the Dynamics and Implications
Patrick A. Imam
,
Kangni R Kpodar
,
Djoulassi K. Oloufade
, and
Vigninou Gammadigbe
This paper delves into the intricate relationship between uncertainty and remittance flows. The prevailing focus has been on tangible risk factors like exchange rate volatility and economic downturn, overshadowing the potential impact of uncertainty on remittance dynamics. Leveraging a new dataset of quarterly remittances combined with uncertainty indicators across 77 developing countries from 1999Q1 to 2019Q4, the analysis highlights that uncertainty in remittance-sending countries negatively affects remittance flows. In contrast, uncertainty in remittance receiving-countries has a more complex, dual effect. In countries with high private investment ratios, rising domestic uncertainty leads to a decline in remittances. Conversely, in countries with low public spending on education and health, remittances increase in response to uncertainy, serving as a social safety net. The paper underscores the heterogeneous and non-linear effects of domestic uncertainty on remittance flows.
Keywords:
Remittances; Uncertainty; Shocks; remittance flow; remittance dynamics; IRF of remittance; remittances in times; uncertainty indicator; Migration; Private investment; Health care spending; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Guatemala: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
This Selected Issues paper explores effects of social unrest in Guatemala. The paper estimates the effects of social unrest on Guatemala’s economy from 2001 to 2023, using the monthly Reported Social Unrest Index as a measure of social unrest. The estimations of the empirical model suggest no effects of social unrest episodes on the main external sector variables. The empirical evidence suggests little to no impact of social unrest in Guatemala. Contrary to Hadzi-Vaskov et al. (2023), the analysis of the effects of social unrest in Guatemala suggests that the effects on the real, monetary, financial, and external sectors are mild, limited, and temporary if not negligible. On the one hand, the lack of cross-country dimensionality is a limitation of our analysis, but on the other hand, exploiting monthly data allows us to disentangle unrest episode effects at higher frequencies than other papers in the literature. Overall, the results are robust to different specifications; the set of controls is extensive and includes controls for future social unrest shocks autocorrelations. The results suggest that Guatemala is resilient to unrest shocks at business-cycle frequencies, even of considerable magnitude.
Keywords:
social spending efficiency; remittance inflow; investment agenda; government expenditure gap; Guatemala's economy; Labor force participation; Gender inequality; Remittances; Women; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Remittances and Social Safety Nets During COVID-19: Evidence From Georgia and the Kyrgyz Republic
Nordine Abidi
,
Mehdi Akhbari
,
Bashar Hlayhel
, and
Sahra Sakha
Remittance flows in emerging market and developing economies were surprisingly resilient during the COVID-19 crisis, providing much-needed income support for remittance-receiving households. However, households were impacted differently across income distributions. Using novel high-frequency household panel data for Georgia and the Kyrgyz Republic and a difference-in-differences approach, we find that as household income fell during the pandemic, remittance-receiving households were more affected than non-remittance-receiving households. Importantly, we find that the incomes of poor, remittance-receiving households in the Kyrgyz Republic were more adversely affected than their non-remittance-receiving counterparts. In contrast, in Georgia, affluent remittance-receiving households experienced more significant income declines than poor remittance-receiving households. This heterogeneous impact can largely be explained by variations in the effectiveness of social safety nets in the two countries. Our results have important policy implications. Although remittances remained resilient during the pandemic, they affected households differently. As such, policymakers should prioritize addressing gaps in social safety nets to support the most vulnerable.
Keywords:
COVID-19; Remittances; Central Asia; remittance-receiving household; household income; remittance flow; households in Georgia; remittance-sending country; remittance receiver; Income; Social assistance spending; Income distribution; North America; Middle East and Central Asia; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
El Salvador: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for El Salvador
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
The pandemic interrupted ten years of growth, but El Salvador is rebounding quickly. Robust external demand, resilient remittances, and a sound management of the pandemic—with the help of a disbursement under the Rapid Financing Instrument (RFI) (SDR287.2 million or US$389 million) approved in April 2020—are supporting a strong recovery. Persistent fiscal deficits and high debt service are leading to large and increasing gross fiscal financing needs.
Keywords:
Salvadorian authorities; authorities of El Salvador; anti-smuggling plan; government finance statistics manual; El Salvador's authorities; authorities' estimate; Virtual currencies; International reserves; Currencies; Remittances; Central America; Caribbean; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Republic of Tajikistan: 2013 Article IV Consultation-Press Release and Staff Report
International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept.
Tajikistan successfully completed a 3-year ECF-supported program in May 2012 and needs to continue with ambitious reforms. While growth is robust, it is non-inclusive, leading to large-scale outmigration that makes Tajikistan the most remittance-dependent country in the world. The country remains the poorest of the eight in the Caucasus and Central Asia (CCA) and stands next to last among the seven with rankings in the ease of doing business. Reliance on commodity imports, a narrow export base, and low buffers leave the economy vulnerable. Weak macroeconomic policy frameworks restrict the authorities’ ability to dampen shocks. State-directed lending and investment displace market-financed activity and create fiscal risks. Presidential elections are scheduled for November.
Keywords:
burden indicator; NBT reform action plan; flows shock; creating flow; headline inflation; NBT website; IMF's transparency policy; NBT internal audit; policy discussion; NBT Law; fund request; remittance inflow; Debt sustainability analysis; Monetary statistics; Global; Central Asia and the Caucasus
Cover IMF Working Papers
No Easy Solution: A Smorgasbord of Factors Drive Remittance Costs
Tito Nícias Teixeira da Silva Filho
There has been a global push to decrease the cost of remittances since at least 2009, which has culminated with its inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. Despite this effort and the emergence of new business models, remittance costs have been decreasing very slowly, disproving predictions that sharp declines would be just around the corner. In addition, remitting to poorer countries remains very expensive. Oddly, this situation has not been able to elicit academic interest on the drivers of remittance costs. This paper delved deeply into the remittances ecosystem and found a very complex, heterogenous and unequal environment, one in which costs are driven by a myriad of factors and where there are no easy and quick solutions available, which explains the disappointing outcome so far. Nonetheless, it also shows that while policymakers have limited room to act they still have a very important role to play.
Keywords:
remittance cost; remittances ecosystem; factors drive remittance; receiving country; remittance price; Remittances; Medium taxpayer office; Global; North America; Central America
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Guatemala: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Guatemala
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
Guatemala has managed to keep infections and deaths moderate during the pandemic. The economic impact of COVID-19 has been mild given an early reopening of the economy, unprecedented policy support, and resilient remittances and exports. However, despite large-scale government interventions to support households, poverty and malnutrition have deteriorated following COVID-19 and the two major hurricanes battering Guatemala last November.
Keywords:
expectations stable; disaster risk policy; remittance inflow; family remittance; public debt level; COVID-19; Remittances; Natural disasters; Government finance statistics; Global; Central America
Cover IMF Working Papers
Legal Aspects of Central Bank Digital Currency: Central Bank and Monetary Law Considerations
Wouter Bossu
,
Mr. Masaru Itatani
, and
Arthur D. P. Rossi
This paper analyzes the legal foundations of central bank digital currency (CBDC) under central bank and monetary law. Absent strong legal foundations, the issuance of CBDC poses legal, financial and reputational risks for central banks. While the appropriate design of the legal framework will up to a degree depend on the design features of the CBDC, some general conclusions can be made. First, most central bank laws do not currently authorize the issuance of CBDC to the general public. Second, from a monetary law perspective, it is not evident that “currency” status can be attributed to CBDC. While the central bank law issue can be solved through rather straithforward law reform, the monetary law issue poses fundmental legal policy challenges.
Keywords:
Central Bank Digital Currency; CBDC; Blockchain; Cryptocurrency; Crypto assets; WP; central bank law; monetary unit; book money; digital currency; law reform; token-based CBDC; Central Bank digital currencies; Currencies; Central bank legislation; Legal support in revenue administration; Payment systems