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Business and Economics > Production and Operations Management

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Cover IMF Working Papers
Firm Performance, Business Supports and Zombification over the Pandemic
Alexander Amundsen
,
Amélie Lafrance-Cooke
, and
Danny Leung
Did the COVID-19 pandemic zombify the economy? Commentators have pointed to the pandemic and related business support measures potentially fueling zombification. Using administrative data covering the universe of Canadian firms, we find a broad-based decline in the share of zombie firms across industries relative to pre-pandemic levels. Whereas business support measures kept firms alive and operating as non-zombie firms, the decline in the zombie firm share was caused by would-be zombie firms exiting, indicative of the pandemic’s cleansing effects. As a consequence, while aggregate labour productivity worsened in Canada over the pandemic, it was not driven by zombie firms.
Keywords:
Zombie Firms; Aggregate Productivity; COVID-19 Pandemic; zombie firm; business support measure; cleansing effect; firm performance; exit component; COVID-19; Productivity; Employment; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Public Perceptions of Canada’s Investment Climate: A Natural Language Processing-Based Approach
Flora Lutz
,
Yuanchen Yang
, and
Chengyu Huang
Canada’s muted productivity growth during recent years has sparked concerns about the country’s investment climate. In this study, we develop a new natural language processing (NPL) based indicator, mining the richness of Twitter (now X) accounts to measure trends in the public perceptions of Canada’s investment climate. We find that while the Canadian investment climate appears to be generally favorable, there are signs of slippage in some categories in recent periods, such as with respect to governance and infrastructure. This result is confirmed by both survey-based and NLP-based indicators. We also find that our NLP-based indicators would suggest that perceptions of Canada’s investment climate are similar to perceptions of U.S. investment climate, except with respect to governance, where views of U.S. governance are notably more negative. Comparing our novel indicator relative to traditional survey-based indicators, we find that the NLP-based indicators are statistically significant in helping to predict investment flows, similar to survey-based measures. Meanwhile, the new NLP-based indicator offers insights into the nuances of data, allowing us to identify specific grievances. Finally, we construct a similar indicator for the U.S. and compare trends across countries.
Keywords:
Investment Climate; Canada; Machine Learning; Sentiment Analysis; muted productivity growth; investmest climate; investment flow; NLP-based indicator; Climate finance; Competition; Infrastructure; Productivity; Mining sector; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Is Inflation Good for Business? The Firm-Level Impact of Inflation Shocks in the Baltics, 1997-2021
Serhan Cevik
,
Alice Fan
, and
Sadhna Naik
Using a large panel of firm-level data, this paper provides an analysis of how inflation shocks in the Baltics between 1997 and 2021 affected total factor productivity (TFP), gross profitability, and net fixed investment in nonfinancial sectors. First, we find that inflation and inflation volatility had mixed effects on TFP growth, profitability and net fixed investment in the first year as well as over the medium term, albeit at a dissipating rate. Second, focusing on subsamples, we find that inflation shocks had differential effects on large versus small firms. Third, we explore sectoral heterogeneity in how firms responded to inflation shocks and observe significant variation across tradable and non-tradable sectors. Finally, estimates from a state-dependent model suggest that firms’ response to inflation shocks varied with the state of the economy. The results suggest that nonfinancial firms in the Baltics have been agile in adjusting to inflation shocks, possibly by either transferring higher production costs to consumers or substituting inputs. Given the differences in the level and nature of the recent inflation shock and the sample period on which our analysis is based, empirical findings presented in this paper might not necessarily apply to the latest bout of inflation in the Baltics.
Keywords:
Inflation; firm performance; productivity; profitability; fixed investment; Baltics; Estonia; Latvia; Lithuania; inflation shock; inflation volatility; IMF working paper No. 24/43; nonfinancial firm; impact of inflation; affected total factor productivity; Total factor productivity; Economic recession
Cover IMF Working Papers
Demand vs. Supply Decomposition of Inflation: Cross-Country Evidence with Applications
Melih Firat
and
Otso Hao
What are the contributions of demand and supply factors to inflation? To address this question, we follow Shapiro (2022) and construct quarterly demand-driven and supply-driven inflation series for 32 countries utilizing sectoral Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) data. We highlight global trends and country-specific differences in inflation decompositions during critical periods such as the great financial crisis of 2008 and the recent inflation surge since 2021. Validating our inflation series, we find that supply-driven inflation is more reactive to oil shocks and supply chain pressures, while demand-driven inflation displays a more pronounced response to monetary policy shocks. Our results also suggest a steeper Phillips curve when inflation is demand-driven, holding significant implications for effective policy design.
Keywords:
Inflation decomposition; demand vs supply; Phillips curve; monetary policy; supply chain pressures; supply decomposition of inflation; demand-driven inflation; supply-driven inflation; decomposition analysis; inflation decomposition methodology; Inflation; Supply shocks; Oil production; Output gap; Oil prices; Global; Asia and Pacific; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Global Economic Impacts of Physical Climate Risks
Caterina Lepore
and
Roshen Fernando
This paper evaluates the global economic consequences of physical climate risks under two Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP 1-2.6 and SSP 2-4.5) using firm-level evidence. Firstly, we estimate the historical sectoral productivity changes from chronic climate risks (gradual changes in temperature and precipitation) and extreme climate conditions (representative of heatwaves, coldwaves, droughts, and floods). Secondly, we produce forward-looking sectoral productivity changes for a global multisectoral sample of firms. For floods, these estimates account for the persistent productivity changes from the damage to firms’ physical capital. Thirdly, we assess the macroeconomic impact of these shocks within the global, multisectoral, intertemporal general equilibrium model: G-Cubed. The results indicate that, in the absence of additional adaptation relative to that already achieved by 2020, all the economies would experience substantial losses under the two climate scenarios and the losses would increase with global warming. The results can be useful for policymakers and practitioners interested in conducting climate risk analysis.
Keywords:
climate risk analysis; capital markets department; climate risk; physical capital; productivity change; Climate change; Productivity; Agricultural sector; Natural disasters; Global; North America; Western Europe; Europe
Cover Technical Notes and Manuals
User Manual for the DIGNAD Toolkit
Mr. Zamid Aligishiev
,
Cian Ruane
, and
Azar Sultanov
This note is a user’s manual for the DIGNAD toolkit, an application aimed at facilitating the use of the DIGNAD model (Debt-Investment-Growth and Natural Disasters) by economists with no to little knowledge of MATLAB and Dynare via a user-friendly Excel-based interface. DIGNAD is a dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy developed at the International Monetary Fund. The model can help economists and policymakers with quantitative assessments and policy scenario analysis of the macrofiscal effects of natural disasters and adaptation infrastructure investments in low-income developing countries and emerging markets. DIGNAD is tailored to disaster-prone countries, which typically are small countries or low-income countries that are particularly exposed to large climate shocks—countries where shocks that can disrupt the entire economy are frequent. However, DIGNAD can be relevant also for larger countries that may potentially be exposed to extreme climatic disasters in the future.
Keywords:
natural disasters; adaptation; resilient infrastructure; public investment; public investment efficiency; debt sustainability; DIGNAD toolkit; IMF copyright; DIGNAD model; GNU General Public License; third-party software; Infrastructure; Public investment spending; Total factor productivity; Depreciation; Sub-Saharan Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Low for (Very) Long? A Long-Run Perspective on r* across Advanced Economies
Josef Platzer
,
Mr. Francesco Grigoli
, and
Robin Tietz
We provide a long-run perspective on neutral interest rates with new estimates for 16 advanced economies since the 1870s using the Laubach and Williams approach. Our estimates differ substantially from commonly used proxies. We find that, while cross-country heterogeneity was significant in the past, since the 1980s the decline has been common to many countries. Traditional determinants such as population aging and productivity growth are strongly correlated with the changes in neutral rates, while others like the relative price of capital and inequality exhibit weak relationships with r*. We also find that neutral rates co-vary negatively with public debt-to-GDP ratios.
Keywords:
neutral rate; old-age dependency ratio; time series; neutral interest rates; coefficient estimate; cited estimation approach; estimation procedure; Real interest rates; Capital account; Aging; Output gap; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Weighted Median Inflation Around the World: A Measure of Core Inflation
Laurence M. Ball
,
Carlos Carvalho
,
Christopher Evans
, and
Mr. Luca A Ricci
The standard measure of core or underlying inflation is the inflation rate excluding food and energy prices. This paper constructs an alternative measure, the weighted median inflation rate, for 38 advanced and emerging economies using subclass level disaggretion of the CPI over 1990-2021, and compares the properties of this measure to those of standard core. For quarterly data, we find that the weighted median is less volatile than standard core, more closely related to economic slack, and more closely related to headline inflation over the next year. The weighted median also has a drawback: in most countries, it has a lower average level than headline inflation. We therefore also consider a measure of core inflation that eliminates this bias, which is based on the percentile of sectoral inflation rates that matches the sample average of headline CPI inflation.
Keywords:
core inflation; median inflation; Phillips curve; D. panel Phillips Curve regression table; C. Phillips Curve estimation; RMSE of headline inflation; measure of core inflation; weighted median; core measure; Inflation; Consumer price indexes; Output gap
Cover Departmental Papers
Taking Stock of IMF Capacity Development on Monetary Policy Forecasting and Policy Analysis Systems
Nils Mæhle
,
Tibor Hlédik
,
Mikhail Pranovich
,
Carina Selander
, and
Mikhail Pranovich
This paper takes stock of forecasting and policy analysis system capacity development (FPAS CD), drawing extensively on the experience and lessons learned from developing FPAS capacity in the central banks. By sharing the insights gained during FPAS CD delivery and outlining the typical tools developed in the process, the paper aims to facilitate the understanding of FPAS CD within the IMF and to inform future CD on building macroeconomic frameworks. As such, the paper offers a qualitative assessment of the experience with FPAS CD delivery and the use of FPAS in the decision-making process in central banks.
Keywords:
Forecasting and Policy Analysis System; FPAS; Central Banks; policy analysis system; monetary policy forecasting; IMF Library; capital markets department; FPAS capacity; Central bank policy rate; Exchange rates; Market interest rates; Output gap; Inflation; Sub-Saharan Africa; Europe; Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
A Model-based Fiscal Taylor Rule and a Toolkit to Assess the Fiscal Stance
Jean-Marc Fournier
and
Philipp Lieberknecht
This paper presents a model-based fiscal Taylor rule and a toolkit to assess the fiscal stance, defined as the change in the structural primary balance. This is built on the normative buffer-stock model of the government (Fournier, 2019) which includes key channels like hysteresis, cycle-dependent multipliers and a risk premium. A simple fiscal Taylor rule prescribes the fiscal stance as a function of past government debt, past output gap and the past structural primary balance. Applications suggest several advanced economies could have better managed their fiscal stance over the last 20 years. Simulations provide fiscal stance recommendations over the medium-term.
Keywords:
WP; objective function; utility function; fiscal policy; fiscal stance; economic stabilization; public debt; government debt; output gap uncertainty; government behavior; government decision; government objective function; output gap threshold; optimizing government; government balance; output gap trajectory; government need; Output gap; Fiscal multipliers; Fiscal rules; Return on investment; Global; France government; government's choice; government budget constraint