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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
  • Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt x
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Cover IMF Working Papers
Government Debt and Growth: The Role of R&D
Can Sever
Economic growth in the advanced economies (AEs) has been slowing down since the early 2000s, while government debt ratios have been rising. The recent surge in debt at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has further intensified concerns about these phenomena. This paper aims to offer insight into the high-debt low-growth environment in AEs by exploring a causal link from government debt to future growth, specifically through the impact of debt on R&D activities. Using data from manufacturing industries since the 1980s, it shows that (i) government debt leads to a decline in growth, particularly in R&D-intensive industries; (ii) the differential effect of government debt on these industries is persistent; and (iii) more developed or open financial systems tend to mitigate this negative impact. These findings contribute to our understanding of the relationship between government debt and growth in AEs, given the role of technological progress and innovation in economic growth.
Keywords:
Government debt; fiscal policy; economic growth; R&D; innovation; financial development; economic growth in the advanced economies; R&D activity; impact of debt; debt level; affect tax dynamics; Financial sector development; Manufacturing; Productivity; Aging; Global
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 Working Papers
Monetary Policy Design with Recurrent Climate Shocks
Mr. Vimal V Thakoor
and
Engin Kara
As climate change intensifies, the frequency and severity of climate-induced disasters are expected to escalate. We develop a New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model to analyze the impact of these events on monetary policy. Our model conceptualizes these disasters as left-tail productivity shocks with a quantified likelihood, leading to a skewed distribution of outcomes. This creates a significant trade-off for central banks, balancing increased inflation risks against reduced output. Our results suggest modifying the Taylor rule to give equal weight to responses to both inflation and output growth, indicating a gradual approach to climateexacerbated economic fluctuations.
Keywords:
Climate change; monetary policy; fiscal policy; Taylor rule; inflation coefficient; skewness curve; monetary policy design; output stability; inflation response; inflation stabilization; Inflation targeting; Inflation; Productivity
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 Working Papers
An Extended Quarterly Projection Model for the Central Bank of Jordan
Adel Al-Sharkas
,
Nedal Al-Azzam
,
Sarah AlTalafha
,
Rasha Abu Shawish
,
Ahmad Shalein
,
Auday Rawwaqah
,
Amany Al-Rawashdeh
,
Daniel Baksa
,
Mr. Philippe D Karam
, and
Mr. Jan Vlcek
The Central Bank of Jordan (CBJ) has developed a Forecasting and Policy Analysis System (FPAS) to serve as a reliable analytical framework for macroeconomic analysis, forecasting and decision-making under a pegged exchange rate regime. At the heart of the FPAS is the CBJ’s extended Jordan Analysis Model (JAM2.0). The model captures the monetary transmission mechanism and provides a consistent monetary policy framework that uses the exchange rate as an effective nominal anchor. This paper outlines the structure and properties of JAM2.0 and emphasizes the enhanced interplay and tradeoffs among monetary, fiscal, and foreign exchange management policies. Simulation and forecasting exercises demonstrate JAM2.0’s ability to match key stylized facts of the Jordanian economy, produce accurate forecasts of important macroeconomic variables, and explain the critical relationships among policies.
Keywords:
forecasting exercise; policy analysis; model forecasting; FX reserve management; headline inflation; Inflation; Exchange rate arrangements; Output gap; Real exchange rates; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Financial Heterogeneity, Investment, and Firm Interactions
Yang Liu
Recent literature has shown that corporate indebtedness affects firm-level investment behavior but not necessarily aggregate business cycles. I argue that interactions among heterogeneous firms play an important role in equilibrium. After a downturn, financially unconstrained firms in financially constrained industries significantly increase capital ex-penditure to substitute depressed investment by their financially constrained competitors. The increase in investment, primarily driven by small and medium firms, leads to substantial gains in future sales. Using a new empirical approach, I further show that equilibrium effects are unambiguously countercyclical because the increase in investment by unconstrained firms does not crowd out investment by financially constrained competitors. The “competitive interaction channel” underscored in this paper may play an important role in mitigating the impact of negative shocks in macroeconomic models with financial heterogeneity.
Keywords:
Financial constraints; investment; equilibrium effects; imperfect competition; firm interaction; investment behavior; equilibrium effect; interaction channel; product similarity; Government debt management; Productivity; Capital spending; Commodity markets; Competition; North America
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Fiscal Stance in Japan: A Model-based Analysis
Jean-Marc Fournier
,
Takuma Hisanaga
, and
Anh D. M. Nguyen
This paper assesses Japan’s fiscal stance in the past and the future with a stochastic structural model called the Buffer-Stock Model of the Government. Our retrospective analysis suggests that the fiscal stance in the 1990s and the early 2000s was overall looser than the model recommendations. As for the future, the model advises the near-term fiscal policy to be supportive with a view to narrowing the output gap and minimizing hysteresis, while recommending a fiscal consolidation over the medium-term at a gradual pace.
Keywords:
Fiscal stance; cycle stabilization; government deficit; government debt; baseline model advice; near-term fiscal policy; fiscal policy path; baseline calibration; Japan's fiscal policy; B. sensitivity analysis; Output gap; Fiscal consolidation; Global; utility function; sustainability concern; interest rate-growth differential; debt level; debt buffer
Cover IMF Working Papers
Economic Growth After Debt Surges
João Tovar Jalles
and
Mr. Paulo A Medas
Debt levels, both private and public, were already at record highs before the Covid-19 pandemic, and surged further in 2020. The high indebteness raises concerns whether it will undermine future growth prospects. This paper contributes to the ongoing debate by examining what happens to economic growth after debt surges. We apply a local projection method to a new dataset of debt surges in 190 countries between 1970 and 2020. Our results show that the relationship between debt surges and economic growth are complex. Debt surges tend to be followed by weaker economic growth and persistently lower output. However, this negative relationship does not always hold. Surges in public debt tend to have the most negative impact on future growth prospects. This is particularly the case if the economy is already operating with a large positive output gap. Debt surges also tend to be followed by weaker economic growth if the initial debt levels are high, especially for private debt surges. Our results also show how debt surges impact future growth. Public debt surges are associated with especially weaker private and public investment, although both private and public consumption are also negatively affected. Surges in corporate debt are followed by lower private and public investment.
Keywords:
Public debt; private debt; economic growth; potential GDP; investment; panel data; local projection; nonlinearities; debt surge; debt level; b Real GDP; changes in debt; robustness exercise; Output gap; Potential output; Public investment spending; Global; surge episode; a number of debt; debt surge episode; Private consumption
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
West African Economic and Monetary Union: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
Selected Issues
Keywords:
sovereign bond market stage; deficit ceiling; sovereign bond market development; growth loss; stages of building block development; Securities markets; Debt limits; Securities; Total factor productivity; West Africa; Global; Sub-Saharan Africa; COVID-19