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Middle East and Central Asia > Qatar

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

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Macroeconomics: Production x
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Cover Selected Issues Papers
Artificial Intelligence in Qatar: Assessing the Potential Economic Impacts
Tongfang Yuan
Qatar has been actively preparing to embrace the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI), allowing it to lead its Emerging Market peers in AI readiness. Qatar’s AI exposure has increased significantly over the years, and increasing AI adoption is assessed to yield more opportunities than risks for the country’s labor force, thanks to the private sector’s contribution in increasing jobs that are more likely to benefit from AI-driven productivity gains. Scenario analyses suggest that increasing AI adoption, supported by policy reforms to boost human capital, innovation and domestic knowledge spillovers, could generate sizeable labor productivity gains over the medium term.
Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence (AI); labor demand; productivity; skills; Qatar; AI adoption; productivity gain; Qatar's AI exposure; artificial intelligence in Qatar; potential of artificial intelligence; Labor force; Labor productivity; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
What Can Artificial Intelligence Do for Stagnant Productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean?
Bas B. Bakker
,
Sophia Chen
,
Dmitry Vasilyev
,
Olga Bespalova
,
Moya Chin
,
Daria Kolpakova
,
Archit Singhal
, and
Yuanchen Yang
Since 1980, income levels in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have shown no convergence with those in the US, in stark contrast to emerging Asia and emerging Europe, which have seen rapid convergence. A key factor contributing to this divergence has been sluggish productivity growth in LAC. Low productivity growth has been broad-based across industries and firms in the formal sector, with limited diffusion of technology being an important contributing factor. Digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) hold significant potential to enhance productivity in the formal sector, foster its expansion, reduce informality, and facilitate LAC’s convergence with advanced economies. However, there is a risk that the region will fall behind advanced countries and frontier emerging markets in AI adoption. To capitalize on the benefits of AI, policies should aim to facilitate technological diffusion and job transition.
Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence (AI); Productivity Stagnation; Technological Innovation; Latin America; Caribbean; Economic Growth; Labor Productivity; Automation; Macroeconomic Impact; Digital Transformation; Cross-Country Analysis; Regional Development; Technology Adoption; Emerging Economies; Economic Policy.; difference AI; AI adoption; technology producer; AI's role; Artificial intelligence; Productivity; North America; Europe; Global; Asia and Pacific
Cover IMF Working Papers
Mending the Crystal Ball: Enhanced Inflation Forecasts with Machine Learning
Yang Liu
,
Ran Pan
, and
Rui Xu
Forecasting inflation has become a major challenge for central banks since 2020, due to supply chain disruptions and economic uncertainty post-pandemic. Machine learning models can improve forecasting performance by incorporating a wider range of variables, allowing for non-linear relationships, and focusing on out-of-sample performance. In this paper, we apply machine learning (ML) models to forecast near-term core inflation in Japan post-pandemic. Japan is a challenging case, because inflation had been muted until 2022 and has now risen to a level not seen in four decades. Four machine learning models are applied to a large set of predictors alongside two benchmark models. For 2023, the two penalized regression models systematically outperform the benchmark models, with LASSO providing the most accurate forecast. Useful predictors of inflation post-2022 include household inflation expectations, inbound tourism, exchange rates, and the output gap.
Keywords:
Core inflation; forecasting; machine learning models; LASSO; Japan; household inflation expectation; forecasting inflation; machine learning method; Annex I. machine learning; enhanced inflation; Inflation; Machine learning; Econometric models; Output gap
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Peru: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
The Selected Issues paper focuses on productivity and growth in Peru. Firms have maintained smaller sizes to avoid the application of a profit-sharing legislation, which has resulted in lower productivity. After a decade of high economic growth averaging over 6 percent per year, potential growth has been falling since 2014. A much slower pace of investment and human has driven the decline capital accumulation, but most notably, a decline in total factor productivity growth. In line with the macroeconomic trends, firm-level productivity has worsened, and the decline has been broad-based across the economy. Special corporate tax regimes and labor legislations and regulations have created barriers to productivity growth. To raise productivity, policies will need to focus on reforming regulations that impose excessive costs to formalizing or growing a business. Down the line, introducing greater labor market flexibility would ensure that workers could transition to productive sectors of the economy and reduce labor informality.
Keywords:
El Niño shock; building RESILIENCE; B. Measuring productivity; B. artificial intelligence; total factor productivity growth; labor force complementarity; Climate change; Natural disasters; Productivity; Potential output; Artificial intelligence; Global; Caribbean
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Economic Impacts and the Regulation of AI: A Review of the Academic Literature and Policy Actions
Mariarosaria Comunale
and
Andrea Manera
We review the literature on the effects of Artificial Intelligence (AI) adoption and the ongoing regulatory efforts concerning this technology. Economic research encompasses growth, employment, productivity, and income inequality effects, while regulation covers market competition, data privacy, copyright, national security, ethics concerns, and financial stability. We find that: (i) theoretical research agrees that AI will affect most occupations and transform growth, but empirical findings are inconclusive on employment and productivity effects; (ii) regulation has focused primarily on topics not explored by the academic literature; (iii) across countries, regulations differ widely in scope and approaches and face difficult trade-offs.
Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence (AI); labor market; task exposure; productivity; regulation; governance.; productivity effect; regulation of AI; AI system; AI model; AI technology; Artificial intelligence; Machine learning; Automation; Global
Cover Selected Issues Papers
2022 FIFA World Cup: Economic Impact on Qatar and Regional Spillovers
Aidyn Bibolov
,
Ken Miyajima
,
Sidra Rehman
, and
Tongfang Yuan
Qatar hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup (WC) successfully and took the opportunity to further develop its non-hydrocarbon economy. Near-term contributions to Qatar’s economy, from visitors’ spending and WC-related broadcasting revenue, of up to 1 percent of GDP was comparable to cross-country experiences. The event generated positive regional economic spillovers as a sizeable share of spectators stayed in and commuted from neighboring GCC countries. Longer-term contributions were significant—the large investment in general infrastructure ahead of the WC drove much of the non-hydrocarbon sector’s growth in the past decade. The high-quality infrastructure and global visibility brought by the WC should be leveraged to further promote diversification and achieve the National Vision 2030.
Keywords:
Economic diversification; economic transformation; Qatar; structural reform; FIFA World Cup; broadcasting revenue; Qatar's economy; WC spectator; World Cup broadcasting right; Public investment spending; Capital spending; Production growth; Spillovers; Tourism; Global; Asia and Pacific
Cover IMF Working Papers
The More the Merrier? A Machine Learning Algorithm for Optimal Pooling of Panel Data
Marijn A. Bolhuis
and
Brett Rayner
We leverage insights from machine learning to optimize the tradeoff between bias and variance when estimating economic models using pooled datasets. Specifically, we develop a simple algorithm that estimates the similarity of economic structures across countries and selects the optimal pool of countries to maximize out-of-sample prediction accuracy of a model. We apply the new alogrithm by nowcasting output growth with a panel of 102 countries and are able to significantly improve forecast accuracy relative to alternative pools. The algortihm improves nowcast performance for advanced economies, as well as emerging market and developing economies, suggesting that machine learning techniques using pooled data could be an important macro tool for many countries.
Keywords:
WP; country; algorithm; Machine learning; GDP growth; forecasts; panel data; pooling; proximate country; machine learning method; example country; macroeconomic aggregate; bias-variance tradeoff; country of interest; Production growth; Eastern Europe
Cover IMF Research Bulletin
IMF Research Perspectives: Spring/Summer 2018
IMF Research Perspective (formerly published as IMF Research Bulletin) is a new, redesigned online newsletter covering updates on IMF research. In the inaugural issue of the newsletter, Hites Ahir interviews Valeria Cerra; and they discuss the economic environment 10 years after the global financial crisis. Research Summaries cover the rise of populism; economic reform; labor and technology; big data; and the relationship between happiness and productivity. Sweta C. Saxena was the guest editor for this inaugural issue.
Keywords:
IRB; big data wave; populism; product market reform; reform agenda; rise of populism; big data innovation; Big data; Global financial crisis of 2008-2009; Personal income; Output gap; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Qatar: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept.
This Selected Issues paper discusses strengthening of fiscal policy and fiscal frameworks in Qatar. It proposes ways to ensure that sustainable fiscal policy is maintained in the medium to long term in Qatar. Fiscal policy remains sustainable, but given the large drop in oil prices, revenue-raising and expenditure-containing measures need to be considered to ensure intergenerational equity. Measures aimed at containing current spending, prioritizing capital expenditure, and raising nonhydrocarbon revenues would help bring fiscal policy back to consistency with intergenerational equity. Strengthening fiscal frameworks would help achieve the desirable fiscal policies.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; Qatar; productivity; revenue; labor productivity; country inflation variable; inflation acceleration; double digit inflation; migration rate; price inflation; government expenditure; lower-than-average productivity; world inflation; growth performance; credit growth; money growth trigger inflation; expenditure-containing measure; Inflation; Total factor productivity; Budget planning and preparation; Labor productivity; Human capital; Global; North Africa
Cover Policy Papers
Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - Economic Prospects and Policy Challenges for the GCC Countries
International Monetary Fund
The global and regional economic environment remains challenging. Global growth remains tepid, and although some pick-up is expected, risks are tilted to the downside. Recent volatility in financial markets is having a significant impact on some large emerging markets, highlighting the challenges that will be faced in unwinding the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing policy. Geopolitical uncertainties in the Middle East are also high.
Keywords:
PP; GCC country; oil price; GCC producer; government spending; GCC economy; GCC regulator; oil market; private sector; asset price volatility; Oil prices; Oil; Oil production; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Fiscal stance; Global; Middle East; central bank governor; oil market indicator; oil price risk scenario; North Africa