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Business and Economics > Public Finance

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 6,956 items for :

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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
St. Lucia: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for St. Lucia
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
Healthy tourist arrivals and an expansionary fiscal stance have supported the economy and helped reduce unemployment, while inflation is declining rapidly on the back of lower commodity prices. The financial sector is broadly healthy, but credit growth has been sluggish, except in the rapidly expanding credit union sector.
Keywords:
authorities of St. Lucia; CARTAC country; donor government; debt target; RBS implementation credit unions; medium term debt management strategy; Credit; Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); Global; Caribbean
Cover Global Financial Stability Notes
Pension Funds and Financial Stability
This Global Financial Stability Note examines the growth of the pension fund sector and the potential financial stability implications. Historically, pension funds have been seen as a contributor to financial stability because of their long-term and well-diversified liabilities. However, the sector has undergone significant structural shifts accelerated by a prolonged period of low interest rates, increasing its exposure to traditional risks while introducing emerging risks; this is reflected in growing intra-financial sector interconnectedness and exposure to long-term sovereign bonds. The recent transition to higher interest rates should be positive for the pension sector, albeit its pace and abruptness has been associated with liquidity stress and contagion risks in some countries.
Keywords:
Pension Funds; Financial Stability; Assets; Risks; Pension Plans; major pension fund sector; IMF Library; major pension savings market; structural liquidity; asset-liability duration mismatch; risk analysis; Pension spending; Pensions; Financial sector stability; Liquidity risk; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
El Salvador: Request for Extended Arrangement Under the Extended Fund Facility-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for El Salvador
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
El Salvador has recovered well from the pandemic, supported by robust remittances and buoyant tourism flows, amid a sharp improvement in the country’s security situation. Inflation has fallen and the external imbalances have narrowed more recently, consistent with a gradual improvement in public finances and favorable terms of trade. In this context, sovereign spreads have come down sharply with recent debt buyback operations helping to ease near-term external financing needs. Despite recent progress, El Salvador’s macroeconomic imbalances remain significant, stemming from high fiscal deficits and debt, as well as low external and financial buffers, in the context of dollarization. Meanwhile, underlying productivity remains low, reflecting in part persistent social and infrastructure gaps, as well as a legacy of weak governance and transparency, which have discouraged investment. The Bukele administration is intent on focusing its second mandate on addressing pending macroeconomic and structural challenges and boosting economic growth, under an IMF-supported program.
Keywords:
audited financial statements; staff appraisal; publication of asset declaration; list of statement; Bitcoin transparency; Public sector; Anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT); Pension spending; Central America; Caribbean; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Pension Reform and Stock Market Development
Shujaat Khan
,
Bo Li
, and
Yunhui Zhao
We highlight the strong connection between developing fully-funded, individually-owned, collectively-managed, mandatory/incentivized (FICMI) pension schemes and the development of domestic stock markets. We do so by building a stylized model and complementing the analysis with cross-country empirical analysis and case studies. We also highlight the challenges of individual impatience, network externalities, and coordination failure in long-term equity investments, which are crucial for stock market development and technological innovation. We find that FICMI pension schemes—when sufficiently wide in coverage and large in size—can serve as coordination devices to support long-term equity investments. Such investments will not only promote domestic stock market development and make it easier for firms to raise long-term equity capital, therefore supporting long-term economic growth, but also enhance financial inclusion and enable more households to benefit from the overall economic development, therefore contributing to inclusive growth. Moreover, we find that the introduction of FICMI pension schemes can impact household savings in two ways: first, FICMI pension can increase household savings through “forced/incentivized” savings channel, where households save too little without FICMI pension (such as in many EMDEs); and second, FICMI pension can decrease household savings and increase household consumption by reducing non-pension savings and decreasing precautionary savings, where households save too much without FICMI pension (such as in China). In both cases, FICMI pension schemes can help move the economy closer to the optimal level of household savings, and may also help improve the structure of such savings. Finally, we discuss the enabling conditions (such as a strong political commitment to the reform and a well-designed fiscal strategy for financing the transition) and policy design for FICMI pension schemes.
Keywords:
Pension Reforms; Stock Market Development; Equity Financing; Innovation' Financial Inclusion; Intertemporal Optimization; Public Pensions; Funded and Private Pensions; FICMI pension schemes; household saving; savings channel; IMF working paper No. 25/49; Pension spending; Pensions; Stock markets; Pension reform; Capital markets; East Asia
Cover Technical Assistance Reports
Republic of the Marshall Islands: Technical Assistance Report-Consumption and Income Tax Reform
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
This report provides analysis and advice on tax policy and administration reforms to modernize and improve the income and consumption tax system. On consumption taxes, the key recommendation is to replace the current system that is based on import tariffs, a business turnover tax, and local sales taxes, by a more efficient and equitable system with a broad-based value-added tax, selected excises to address externalities, and a profit tax. On income taxes, the report recommends base broadening and simplifying the rate structure.
Keywords:
Personal income tax; Corporate income tax; Value-added tax; Turnover tax; Republic of the Marshall Islands.; schedule reform option; Marshalls energy company; gross revenue; profit tax; capacity development mission; reform management governance; tax administration issue; income tax reform; administration system; Marshall Islands consumption tax; Tax administration core functions; Consumption taxes; Income and capital gains taxes; Global; Asia and Pacific; Pacific Islands
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Post-Pandemic Changes to Chile’s Financial Markets: Chile
Tatsushi Okuda
Pension fund withdrawals, rising public debt, and the Central Bank of Chile’s pandemic liquidity injections have reshaped Chile’s financial landscape. In the context of the diminished demand for local bonds, large non-financial corporations and the government relied more on foreign investors. Overall, Chile’s financial depth has diminished, and markets have become more volatile and sensitive to shocks. Restoring pension funds as well as continuing to strengthen market resilience and crisis response capabilities are essential for ensuring future financial stability.
Keywords:
Financial sector stability; Financial depth; Pension fund withdrawal; market resilience; pandemic liquidity injection; Chile's financial markets; I. Chilean pension funds; Pension spending; Sovereign bonds; Bonds; Corporate bonds; COVID-19; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Qatar: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept.
2024 Selected Issues
Keywords:
AI readiness; AI adoption; B. Qatar's progress; artificial intelligence in Qatar; innovation policy; Export diversification; Capital spending; Exports; Human capital; Global; Middle East; Eastern Europe; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Understanding the Macroeconomic Effects of Natural Disasters
Ha Nguyen
,
Alan Feng
, and
Mercedes Garcia-Escribano
Climate change is causing more frequent and devastating natural disasters. The goal of this paper is two-fold. First, it examines the dynamic effects of natural disasters on the growth of output and its components. Government expenditure in advanced economies (AEs) rises immediately in the same year of the natural disaster, offsetting the decline in private investment growth and thereby mitigating the negative effect on output growth. As a result, output growth in AEs is not significantly affected by natural disasters. In contrast, the increase in government expenditure in emerging markets and developing countries (EMDEs) after a natural disaster is smaller and thus, unable to mitigate the contemporaneous negative effect on output growth (which mainly reflects the fall in investment in non-small-island EMDEs and in net exports in small-island EMDEs). In addition, the output recovery in the subsequent year does not fully offset the decline during the year of the disaster. Second, this paper assesses the role of pre-existing country characteristics in mitigating the adverse impact of natural disasters. The paper finds that small islands and countries with limited pre-disaster fiscal space tend to experience more significant declines in output growth following a natural disaster.
Keywords:
Natural disasters; economic growth; robustness check; export commodity price shock; output recovery; growth of output; aggregate impact; Commodity price shocks; Fiscal space; Fiscal stance; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Thailand: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
2024 Selected Issues
Keywords:
fan chart; household debt; Thailand's debt ceiling; public debt debt ceiling; estimates of debt limits; Debt limits; Consumer credit; Loans; Consumer loans; Global; Eastern Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Nicaragua: 2024 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Nicaragua
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
The 2024 Article IV Consultation discusses that Nicaragua’s economic performance remains robust, underpinned by prudent macroeconomic policies and very strong remittance flows. The economy remains open and resilient, after confronting multiple large shocks, and on a backdrop of transfers of private property to the state, international sanctions, and reorientation of official financing. Going forward, domestic and international political developments may impact economic performance, by potentially increasing the cost of doing business and impacting other cross-border flows. Fiscal and current account surpluses are expected to narrow, due to authorities’ plans to increase public investment, and the increase in imports supporting the private consumption-led growth. Risks to the outlook are broadly balanced in the short-term and on the downside in the medium term. Continued prudent fiscal, monetary, and financial policies will help maintain macroeconomic and financial stability, preserve fiscal sustainability, strengthen policy buffers, and support medium-term inclusive growth. Policy coordination remains crucial, alongside key reforms, including reforming the pension system, strengthening the monetary policy transmission mechanism, enhancing financial deepening, and supporting human and physical capital accumulation.
Keywords:
update safeguard assessment; transmission mechanism; Policy coordination; safeguards recommendation; tax audit procedure; exports threshold; authority of the BCN; headline inflation; Public sector; Financial sector stability; Global; Central America; Caribbean