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International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
The 2024 Article IV Consultation discusses that boosting labor supply, containing public expenditure pressures, and raising productivity will be required for Norway to be able to continue its strong economic performance and preserve its welfare model. A recent White Paper by the Ministry of Finance rightly raises these key issues facing Norway’s economy in the longer term. Real gross domestic product growth slowed in 2023 and is expected to gradually rebound in the near term as private domestic demand strengthens supported by higher real incomes. Tight macroprudential policies should remain in place to mitigate systemic vulnerabilities. The financial system appears resilient and banking system buffers are strong. Long-term fiscal challenges should be more forcefully addressed. Norway has the largest proportion of the population on disability-related benefits among the organisation for economic co-operation and development countries, and reforming costly and distortionary social benefit systems is possibly the most important and politically difficult reform pending. Although Norway boasts one of the highest levels of labor productivity among its peers, it has slowed faster than in other countries. To reverse this trend, conditions should be improved to facilitate sectoral reallocation as well as innovation and technology adoption.
Thomas Benninger
,
Dan Devlin
,
Eduardo Camero Godinez
, and
Nate Vernon
Mining and petroleum projects share characteristics distinguishing them from other sectors of the economy, which has led to the use of dedicated fiscal regimes for these projects. The IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department uses fiscal modeling to evaluate extractive industry fiscal regimes for its member countries, and trains country officials on key modeling concepts. This paper outlines important preconditions needed for effective fiscal modeling, key evaluation metrics, and emphasizes the importance of transparent modeling practices. It then examines the modeling of commonly-used fiscal instruments and highligts where their economic impact differs, and how fiscal models can inform fiscal regime design.
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
Over the past decades the Republic of Armenia has implemented significant reforms to reduce the state footprint in their economy and to improve the performance of the State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) where the Government intends to retain ownership. The Government has taken concrete steps focusing on improving the financial transparency and fiscal viability of SOEs. This report discusses how the Government can further strengthen the SOE financial accountability, transparency and oversight, and SOEs corporate governance in line with good international practices. These measures should be combined with further efforts in reducing the number of SOEs, focusing on those that do not align with the Government strategic priorities and the state ownership policy.
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper provides an international perspective to the authorities’ two recent policy measures: setting up new savings and counter cyclical and climate infrastructure funds and reforming the judicial review of planning decisions in Ireland. The first essay presents international best practices in the design and operation of sovereign wealth funds that could inform the setup of the two new funds in Ireland. It highlights the importance of operating the funds within a strong fiscal policy framework. The second essay reviews Ireland’s planning and permitting system, underscoring the key elements that have hindered public investment. It also looks into the government’s proposed Bill to reform the planning system and contrasts its key features with those of other international jurisdictions. It finds that several issues may contribute to the inefficiencies in the planning and judicial review system, such as the loose standing requirements and lack of mandatory timelines related to judicial review, as well as institutional governance issues within the planning board, which the newly proposed reforms and legislative measures seek to address.
Mr. Luc Eyraud
,
William Gbohoui
, and
Mr. Paulo A Medas
This paper revisits the debate on the design of fiscal rules in resource-rich countries. Its main objective is to assess alternative systems of rules against their policy objectives, while taking into account country characteristics. One of the contributions of the paper is to propose fiscal frameworks that are centered around the principle of insurance against shocks and less reliant on estimating precisely resource wealth, which tends to be highly volatile.
International Monetary Fund. Legal Dept.
This paper presents a regional report on Nordic-Baltic technical assistance project: financial flows analysis, Anti-Money Laundering and combating the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) Supervision, and Financial Stability. The purpose of the project is to conduct an analysis of cross-border ML threats and vulnerabilities in the Nordic-Baltic region—encompassing Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden (the Nordic-Baltic Constituency or NBC)—and issue a final report containing recommendations for mitigating the potential risks. The financial flows analysis presented in this report is based on the IMF staff’s analysis of cross-border payments data. Six out of the eight Nordic-Baltic countries have seen an increase in aggregate flows since 2013. Monitoring cross-border financial flows provides countries with a deeper understanding of their external ML threat environment and evolving cross-border related risks they are facing. Leveraging broader analysis of ML/TF cross-border risk, the Nordic-Baltic countries should develop their own understanding of higher-risk countries reflecting country-specific ML/TF threats.
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
This technical assistance report on Chile highlights fiscal considerations in managing stabilization funds. Chile’s strong fiscal framework has served the country well. Cross-country experience shows that an adequate buffer in stabilization fund can facilitate governments’ response to shocks. Rebuilding fiscal buffers in a holistic framework can help Chile better manage tail risks. The quantitative models suggest that keeping debt well below the current prudent ceiling on central government gross debt at 45 percent of gross domestic product is appropriate. The government can reduce public debt to give space for future borrowing in adverse times or accumulate liquid assets to rebuild fiscal buffers. Fiscal efforts to achieve a broadly balanced fiscal position are an important way to rebuild buffers. The government should avoid borrowing more debt at high interest rates to save assets in the stabilization fund. Overall, the pace of building buffers should be tailored to economic conditions.
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
The economy bounced back strongly from the first wave of Covid-19 pandemic, and the recovery is well entrenched in 2022. However, risks to the outlook are considerable, given the uncertainty over spillovers from the war in Ukraine, the intensity of the pandemic globally, and in Europe, in particular, and supply bottlenecks. Given the strong fundamentals, Norway is relatively shielded and there are both upside (higher energy prices and export volumes) and downside risks (lower demand from Europe for non-energy exports). The forecast is especially sensitive to where energy prices settle, whether energy supply to Europe will be disrupted, and Norway’s capacity to increase gas supplies to Europe.
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
St. Kitts and Nevis entered the Covid-19 pandemic from a position of fiscal strength following nearly a decade of budget surpluses. A significant part of the large CBI revenues was prudently saved, reducing public debt below the regional debt target of 60 percent of GDP and supporting accumulation of large government deposits.
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
Norway’s key challenge is to get the right balance of support for recovery and adjustment until the crisis is firmly in its past. The authorities intend to continue exceptional policy support into 2021, adjusted to reflect the rebound in economic activity and pace of vaccinations in the second half of the year, and with better targeting to affected sectors. This will support the expected closing of the output gap by 2023 and help mitigate scarring, while also facilitating reallocation of capital and labor.