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Middle East and Central Asia > Jordan

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 25 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth x
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Cover Policy Papers
IMF Approach to Central Bank Digital Currency Capacity Development
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
The global central banking community is actively exploring Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), which may have a fundamental impact on both domestic and international economic and financial stability. Over 40 countries have approached the IMF to request assistance through CBDC capacity development (CD). Current IMF CBDC CD efforts have focused on facilitating peer learning and developing analytical underpinnings for staff advice to member countries. CD missions have aimed at helping country authorities answer questions about how to think about CBDCs. With more available country experiments and empirical evidence, IMF CD will evolve to provide increased value-added advice more tailored to country circumstances and more solidly anchored in empirical and analytical work, and strengthen synergies with surveillance. This paper sketches a multi-year strategy to address frequently asked questions related to CBDC and outlines the process for developing a CBDC Handbook which will document emerging lessons, analytical findings, and policy views. The paper (1) explains the IMF’s approach to CBDC CD; (2) summarizes member countries’ emerging questions and challenges regarding CBDC; and (3) introduces the CBDC Handbook by motivating its scope and elucidating its governance structure.
Keywords:
Central bank digital currencies; capacity development; Handbook; CBDC handbook; IMF's digital money strategy; IMF approach; IMF CD; handbook chapter; IMF staff encounter; Payment systems; Digital currencies; Financial sector stability; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Digitalization and Resilience: Firm-level Evidence During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Nordine Abidi
,
Mehdi El Herradi
, and
Sahra Sakha
The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented shock to firms with adverse consequences for existing productive capacities. At the same time, digitalization has increasingly been touted as a key pathway for mitigating economic losses from the pandemic, and we expect firms facing digital constraints to be less resilient to supply shocks. This paper uses firm-level data to investigate whether digitally-enabled firms have been able to mitigate economic losses arising from the pandemic better than digitally-constrained firms in the Middle East and Central Asia region using a difference-in-differences approach. Controlling for demand conditions, we find that digitally-enabled firms faced a lower decline in sales by about 4 percentage points during the pandemic compared to digitally-constrained firms, suggesting that digitalization acted as a hedge during the pandemic. Against this backdrop, our results suggest that policymakers need to close the digital gap and accelerate firms’ digital transformation. This will be essential for economies to bounce back from the pandemic, and build the foundations for future resilience.
Keywords:
COVID-19; digitalization; technology adoption; economic resilience; Middle East and Central Asia; digitally-enabled firm; digitally-constrained firm; firms in the Middle East; firm-level data; digital transformation; Digitalization; Financial inclusion; Foreign corporations; Asia and Pacific; Africa; Middle East; North Africa
Cover Departmental Papers
State-Owned Enterprises in Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia: Size, Costs, and Challenges
Mr. Ernesto Ramirez Rigo
,
Christine J. Richmond
,
Oluremi Akin Olugbade
,
Gareth Anderson
,
Maria Atamanchuk
,
Mr. Hatim Bukhari
,
Iacovos Ioannou
,
Deeksha Kale
,
Tannous Kass-Hanna
,
Mr. Maximilien Queyranne
,
Wei Shi
, and
Joyce Wong
Prior to the COVID-19 shock, the key challenge facing policymakers in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia region was how to generate strong, sustainable, job-rich, inclusive growth. Post-COVID-19, this challenge has only grown given the additional reduction in fiscal space due to the crisis and the increased need to support the recovery. The sizable state-owned enterprise (SOE) footprint in the region, together with its cost to the government, call for revisiting the SOE sector to help open fiscal space and look for growth opportunities.
Keywords:
State-owned enterprises; corporate governance; fiscal risks; Middle East; Central Asia; COVID-19; SOE footprint; government support; SOE definition; SOE mandate; SOE sector; SOE governance; Public enterprises; Public sector; North Africa; Middle East and Central Asia; Global
Cover Departmental Papers
State-Owned Enterprises in Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia: Size, Costs, and Challenges: Executive Summary
Mr. Ernesto Ramirez Rigo
,
Christine J. Richmond
,
Oluremi Akin Olugbade
,
Gareth Anderson
,
Maria Atamanchuk
,
Mr. Hatim Bukhari
,
Iacovos Ioannou
,
Deeksha Kale
,
Tannous Kass-Hanna
,
Mr. Maximilien Queyranne
,
Wei Shi
, and
Joyce Wong
Prior to the COVID-19 shock, the key challenge facing policymakers in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia region was how to generate strong, sustainable, job-rich, inclusive growth. Post-COVID-19, this challenge has only grown given the additional reduction in fiscal space due to the crisis and the increased need to support the recovery. The sizable state-owned enterprise (SOE) footprint in the region, together with its cost to the government, call for revisiting the SOE sector to help open fiscal space and look for growth opportunities.
Keywords:
State-owned enterprises; corporate governance; fiscal risks; Middle East; Central Asia; COVID-19; SOE footprint; government support; SOE definition; SOE mandate; SOE sector; SOE governance; Public enterprises; Public sector; North Africa; Middle East and Central Asia; Global
Cover Departmental Papers
State-Owned Enterprises in Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia: Size, Costs, and Challenges: Executive Summary
Mr. Ernesto Ramirez Rigo
,
Christine J. Richmond
,
Oluremi Akin Olugbade
,
Gareth Anderson
,
Maria Atamanchuk
,
Mr. Hatim Bukhari
,
Iacovos Ioannou
,
Deeksha Kale
,
Tannous Kass-Hanna
,
Mr. Maximilien Queyranne
,
Wei Shi
, and
Joyce Wong
Prior to the COVID-19 shock, the key challenge facing policymakers in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia region was how to generate strong, sustainable, job-rich, inclusive growth. Post-COVID-19, this challenge has only grown given the additional reduction in fiscal space due to the crisis and the increased need to support the recovery. The sizable state-owned enterprise (SOE) footprint in the region, together with its cost to the government, call for revisiting the SOE sector to help open fiscal space and look for growth opportunities.
Keywords:
State-owned enterprises; corporate governance; fiscal risks; Middle East; Central Asia; COVID-19; SOE footprint; government support; SOE definition; SOE mandate; SOE sector; SOE governance; Public enterprises; Public sector; North Africa; Middle East and Central Asia; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Gender Equality and Inclusive Growth
Asel Isakova
and
Francesco Luna
This paper considers various dimensions and sources of gender inequality and presents policies and best practices to address these. With women accounting for fifty percent of the global population, inclusive growth can only be achieved if it promotes gender equality. Despite recent progress, gender gaps remain across all stages of life, including before birth, and negatively impact health, education, and economic outcomes for women. The roadmap to gender equality has to rely on legal framework reforms, policies to promote equal access, and efforts to tackle entrenched social norms. These need to be set in the context of arising new trends such as digitalization, climate change, as well as shocks such as pandemics.
Keywords:
gender gap; inequality; wage gap; wage segregation; gender discrimination; active labor market policies; gender budgeting; GGGI: Global Gender Gap Index; inclusive growth; WP; fiscal policy; parental leave; justice system; gender earnings gap; age-employment profile; commonwealth country; earnings gap; job portal; Women; Gender inequality; Global; South Asia; Sub-Saharan Africa; West Africa; Central Asia
Cover IMF Working Papers
Harnessing Digital Technologies to Promote SMEs in the MENAP Region
Ms. Inutu Lukonga
Policy makers in the MENAP region have been formulating policies and designing programs to develop small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) with a view to create jobs and achieve inclusive growth. But while the programs have helped increase the number of enterprises, growth of SMEs continues to face barriers to growth. As a result, microenterprises predominate and SMEs contribution to employment remains below potential. Partial implementation of reforms explain some of the underperformance, but frictions in strategy design also played an important role. Sustaining current reforms is, therefore, not sufficient to achieve inclusive growth. Digital technologies have potential to boost SMEs productivity and growth and economies are rapidly digitalizing, thus SMEs need to embrace digital solutions to compete and survive. Therefore, for SMEs to be effective engines of inclusive growth, a rethinking of the SME development strategy is needed that makes SMEs’ digital transformation a priority.
Keywords:
WP; SME growth; MENAP country; financing SMEs; SME sector; SME support policy; SMEs in MENAP; SME lending; government service; digital economy; Small and medium enterprises; Business environment; Employment; Digitalization; Global; Middle East; North Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa; Digital Technologies; Inclusive Growth; MENAP Region; SME strategy; private equity; SME policy; SME data
Cover IMF Working Papers
FinTech in Financial Inclusion: Machine Learning Applications in Assessing Credit Risk
Majid Bazarbash
Recent advances in digital technology and big data have allowed FinTech (financial technology) lending to emerge as a potentially promising solution to reduce the cost of credit and increase financial inclusion. However, machine learning (ML) methods that lie at the heart of FinTech credit have remained largely a black box for the nontechnical audience. This paper contributes to the literature by discussing potential strengths and weaknesses of ML-based credit assessment through (1) presenting core ideas and the most common techniques in ML for the nontechnical audience; and (2) discussing the fundamental challenges in credit risk analysis. FinTech credit has the potential to enhance financial inclusion and outperform traditional credit scoring by (1) leveraging nontraditional data sources to improve the assessment of the borrower’s track record; (2) appraising collateral value; (3) forecasting income prospects; and (4) predicting changes in general conditions. However, because of the central role of data in ML-based analysis, data relevance should be ensured, especially in situations when a deep structural change occurs, when borrowers could counterfeit certain indicators, and when agency problems arising from information asymmetry could not be resolved. To avoid digital financial exclusion and redlining, variables that trigger discrimination should not be used to assess credit rating.
Keywords:
WP; ML model; bears risk; machine learning technique; ML analysis; ML evaluation; FinTech Credit; Financial Inclusion; Machine Learning; Credit Risk Assessment; ML analyst; credit risk driver; FinTech credit company; credit scoring; supervised machine learning model; capital structure; borrower default; neural network; Credit risk; Credit; Credit ratings; Loans; Global
Cover Departmental Papers
Opportunity for All: Promoting Growth and Inclusiveness in the Middle East and North Africa
Miss Catriona Purfield
,
Mr. Harald Finger
,
Mrs. Karen Ongley
,
Mr. Benedicte Baduel
,
Carolina Castellanos
,
Ms. Gaelle Pierre
,
Vahram Stepanyan
, and
Mr. Erik Roos
This publication brings together a set of IMF papers that prepared as backgrounds for the various sessions of the conference and will help put into broader dissemination channels the results of this important conference. An official IMF publication is well disseminated into academic and institutional libraries and book channels. The IMF metadata will also make the conference papers more discoverable online.
Keywords:
DPPP; DP; private sector; IMF staff calculation; labor market; job creation
Cover Departmental Papers
Opportunité pour tous: Croissance et inclusion au Moyen-Orient et en Afrique du Nord
Miss Catriona Purfield
,
Mr. Harald Finger
,
Mrs. Karen Ongley
,
Mr. Benedicte Baduel
,
Carolina Castellanos
,
Ms. Gaelle Pierre
,
Vahram Stepanyan
, and
Mr. Erik Roos
This publication brings together a set of IMF papers that prepared as backgrounds for the various sessions of the conference and will help put into broader dissemination channels the results of this important conference. An official IMF publication is well disseminated into academic and institutional libraries and book channels. The IMF metadata will also make the conference papers more discoverable online.
Keywords:
DPPP; DP; private sector; IMF staff calculation; labor market; job creation