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Business and Economics > Production and Operations Management

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 149 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • National Government Expenditures and Related Policies: General x
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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 Staff Country Reports
Finland: 2025 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Finland
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
The 2024 Article IV Consultation discusses that the Finnish economy is recovering from the 2023 recession, supported by easing inflation and real wage growth. Falling energy prices and weak domestic demand have temporarily reduced inflation below 2 percent. The economic recovery is expected to gain momentum in 2025, but downside risks, especially from abroad, remain elevated. The economic downturn and increases in expenditure are expected to drive the fiscal deficit to 3.7 percent in 2024, further increasing public debt. Banks are well capitalized and have sufficient liquidity to withstand all but the most severe shocks. Ambitious labor market reforms initiated in 2023 will continue to support employment as the economy recovers. However, there is potential to increase participation rates further, strengthen educational outcomes, and attract more high-skilled talent from abroad. While Finland performs well on many business and innovation metrics, deeper structural reforms are needed to raise productivity growth. Attention should be given to increasing the availability of risk capital, reducing barriers to entry into the services sector, and continuing to pursue the deepening of the EU’s single market.
Keywords:
Ministry of Finance estimate; R&D expenditure; transparency policy; population growth boost housing demand; FIN-FSA favor; Finland's economy; strengthening growth momentum; Productivity; Fiscal stance; Baltics; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Output Gap Uncertainty and Fiscal Policy Adjustment in Real-Time in Emerging Economies
Giacomo Cattelan
and
Boaz Nandwa
Uncertainty around the real-time output gap has important implications for fiscal policy. This study uses successive vintages of the World Economic Outlook for emerging markets (EMs) during 1998-2022 to examine the reaction of discretionary fiscal policy to uncertain economic cycle in real-time. The findings show that EMs tend to have persistently negative and significantly more volatile real-time output gap estimates compared to advanced economies (AEs) and are less responsive to the output gap shocks. We calibrate a New Keynesian DSGE model to match the behavior of an average EM. The results from the model suggest that when EM policy makers are equally concerned about uncertainty around the output gap estimates and about fiscal implementation, fiscal policy is less counter-cyclical than the benchmark case with no uncertainty, entailing an efficiency loss for the purpose of output gap stabilization. On the other hand, when the concern is only about output gap uncertainty, EM policy makers tend to react more counter-cyclically but at a cost of public debt spiking in the short term and stabilizing over the long term. This implies that it might be optimal for EM policy makers to act more aggressively to stabilize the economy. We show that by adjusting the relative importance of output gap vs debt stabilization in their objective function, EM policy makers can achieve a similar outcome as in the benchmark case with no uncertainty.
Keywords:
Fiscal policy; real-time output gap estimates; public debt; output gap uncertainty; output gap shock; output gap estimate; real-time output gap; fiscal policy adjustment; Output gap; Fiscal stance; Neoclassical theory
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Republic of Estonia: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper explains Estonia’s recent losses of export market shares. Estonia’s export market share has fallen sharply, signalling that exporters have difficulties to keep up with foreign competition. While the immediate cause of this decline can be traced back to an adverse combination of external shocks triggered by the war in Ukraine, signs of faltering export performance surfaced already in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, and thus predate recent shocks. Using a constant share decomposition, this paper shows that, unlike in Latvia and Lithuania, a significant portion of the decline in Estonia’s export share can be attributed to the ‘intensive margin’, i.e., a shrinking share of Estonia’s exports in the main destination markets—a sign of weakening external competitiveness and declining relative productivity. A few high-level policy implications can be drawn. Addressing the erosion of external competitiveness will require structural reforms aimed at enhancing productivity, removing impediment to a structural transformation of the economy toward more technologically intensive and higher value-added products and services, as well as efforts to ensure that real wage growth remains closely aligned with productivity growth. By addressing these underlying challenges, Estonia can restore external competitiveness and ensure continued convergence toward the income levels of EU most advanced economies and Nordic neighbors.
Keywords:
labor market liberalization; Within-Sector allocative efficiency; export market share; export share decline; TFP dynamics; Estonia's government spending; tax revenue-to-GDP ratio; Total factor productivity; Exports; Capital adequacy requirements; Productivity; Baltics; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Australia: 2023 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Australia
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
The 2023 Article IV Consultation discusses that Australia’s post-pandemic recovery remained strong. However, growth is weakening on the heels of tighter macroeconomic policies and financial conditions. While inflation has peaked, it remains persistently high. Economic activity is projected to further decelerate in the near term, as the tightening of monetary conditions continues to take hold. Short-term policies should focus on navigating the economy to a soft landing, by bringing inflation back to target, while maintaining financial stability. Policy coordination will be critical. Structural reforms must address declining productivity growth and challenges related to ageing and put the economy on the path for a green transition. Structural policies should be centered on promoting productivity growth. Continued investment in digital infrastructure, more direct government funding for research and development, and more open foreign direct investment regime coupled with labor market and tax reforms are among the key structural policies.
Keywords:
CPI expenditure weight; state government leader; CPI indicator; Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook; fiscal policy coordination; employment white paper roadmap; Inflation; Housing; Productivity; Housing prices; Global
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 Policy Papers
Staff Guidance Note on The Implementation of The IMF Strategy for Fragile and Conflict-Affected States (FCS)
International Monetary Fund. Institute for Capacity Development
This note provides operational advice and information to help staff implement the IMF Strategy for Fragile and Conflict-Affected States (FCS) approved by the Executive Board on March 9, 2022. Topics covered include (i) the new IMF FCS classification methodology, which is aligned with that of the World Bank; (ii) the preparation of Country Engagement Strategies (CES) that will be rolled out across FCS to ensure that Fund engagement is appropriately tailored to country-specific manifestations of fragility and/or conflict; (iii) advice on tailoring the thematic focus of Article IV consultations and Fund analytics to FCS, as well as on the prioritization, design, and implementation of capacity development (CD) projects in fragile contexts; (iv) guidance on making full use of the flexibilities of the lending toolkit; (v) guidance on engaging in specific FCS situations, including building accountable institutions to exit fragility, cases of rising fragility risks, active conflict, post-conflict, and addressing the impact of external shocks and spillovers; and (v) strengthening partnerships with humanitarian, development, and peace actors, in accordance with the Fund’s mandate. Dedicated annexes provide additional information on the CES process, addressing good governance in FCS, program design, and country examples of Fund engagement in FCS.
Keywords:
fragility; conflict; fragile and conflict-affected states; political economy; inclusive growth; macroeconomic policy; absorptive capacity; balance of payments; country engagement strategies; capacity development; surveillance; partnerships; governance; FCS staff development; FCS strategy; FCS list; FCS classification; FCS circumstances; Balance of payments need; Capacity utilization; Climate change; West Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Côte d’Ivoire: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
Selected Issues
Keywords:
growth spell; governance FRAMEWORK; efficiency gain; world governance indicator; growth episode; Health care spending; Education spending; Public investment spending; Global; Sub-Saharan Africa; West Africa; Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Knowledge Spillovers From Superstar Tech-Firms: The Case of Nokia
Jyrki Ali-Yrkkö
,
Reda Cherif
,
Fuad Hasanov
,
Natalia Kuosmanen
, and
Mika Pajarinen
Do workers hired from superstar tech-firms contribute to better firm performance? To address this question, we analyze the effects of tacit knowledge spillovers from Nokia in the context of a quasi-natural experiment in Finland, the closure of Nokia’s mobile device division in 2014 and the massive labor movement it implied. We apply a two-stage difference-in-differences approach with heterogeneous treatment to estimate the causal effects of hiring former Nokia employees. Our results provide new evidence supporting the positive causal role of former Nokia workers on firm performance. The evidence of the positive spillovers on firms is particularly strong in terms of employment and value added.
Keywords:
human capital; employment; value added; Nokia; difference-in-differences; heterogeneous treatment; knowledge spillovers; superstar firms.; superstar tech-firm; spillover effect; Nokia employee; superstar firm; effects from Nokia; Spillovers; Employment; Labor productivity; Positive spillovers; Human capital; Global; appendix B.; Specialist hire; knowledge spillovers from Nokia; Total expenditures
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Côte d’Ivoire: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
Selected Issues
Keywords:
growth spell; governance FRAMEWORK; efficiency gain; world governance indicator; growth episode; Health care spending; Education spending; Public investment spending; Global; Sub-Saharan Africa; West Africa; Africa