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Mr. Xavier Debrun
and
Mr. Tidiane Kinda
Institutions aimed at constraining policy discretion to promote sound fiscal policies are once again at the forefront of the policy debate. Interest in “fiscal councils,” independent watchdogs active in the public debate, has grown rapidly in recent years. This paper presents the first cross-country dataset summarizing key characteristics of fiscal councils among IMF members. The data documents a surge in the number of fiscal councils since the crisis. It also illustrates that well-designed fiscal councils are associated with stronger fiscal performance and better macroeconomic and budgetary forecasts. Key features of effective fiscal councils include operational independence from politics, the provision or public assessment of budgetary forecasts, a strong presence in the public debate, and the monitoring of compliance with fiscal policy rules.
Mr. Frigyes F Heinz
and
Ms. Yan M Sun
By analysing data from January 2007 to December 2012 in a panel GLS error correction framework we find that European countries’ sovereign CDS spreads are largely driven by global investor sentiment, macroeconomic fundamentals and liquidity conditions in the CDS market. But the relative importance of these factors changes over time. While during the 2008/09 crisis weak economic fundamentals (such as high current account decifit, worsening underlying fiscal balances, credit boom), a drop in liquidity and a spike in risk aversion contributed to high spreads in Central and Eastern and South-Eastern European (CESEE) countries, a marked improvement in fundamentals (e.g. reduction in fiscal deficit, narrowing of current balances, gradual economic recovery) explains the region’s resilience to financial market spillovers during the euro area crisis. Our generalised variance decomposition analyisis does not suggest strong direct spillovers from the euro area periphery. The significant drop in the CDS spreads between July 2012 and December 2012 was mainly driven by a decline in risk aversion as suggested by the model’s out of sample forecasts.
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Information Annex highlights that Slovenia maintains an exchange system that is free of restrictions on the making of payments and transfers for current international transactions, with the exception of exchange restrictions maintained for security reasons. Slovenian fiscal statistics are timely and high quality. The Ministry of Finance publishes a comprehensive monthly Bulletin of Government Finance, which presents monthly data on the operations of the state budget, local governments, social security, and the consolidated general government. The coverage of general government excludes the operations of extrabudgetary funds and general government agencies’ own revenues. However, these operations are small.
Ms. Yan M Sun
,
Mr. Frigyes F Heinz
, and
Giang Ho
This paper uses the Global VAR (GVAR) model proposed by Pesaran et al. (2004) to study cross-country linkages among euro area countries, other advanced European countries (including the Nordics, the UK, etc.), and the Central, Eastern and Southeastern European (CESEE) countries. An innovative feature of the paper is the use of combined trade and financial weights (based on BIS reporting banks’ external position data) to capture the very close trade and financial ties of the CESEE countries with the advanced Europe countries. The results show strong co-movements in output growth and interest rates but weaker linkages bewteen inflation and real credit growth within Europe. While the euro area is the dominant source of economic influences, there are also interesting subregional linkages, e.g. between the Nordic and the Baltic countries, and a small but notable impact of CESEE countries on the rest of the Europe.
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
The Macedonian labor market exhibits a high unemployment rate, yet does not demonstrate obvious and large enough constraints on the demand or supply side. Considerable achievements can be made by maintaining macroeconomic stability, attracting FDI, and closing the educational gaps. The second paper assesses ways in which the Macedonian financial sector could better contribute to growth and real convergence, taking stock of where the sector stands and its recent developments. Streamlining bankruptcy procedures, improving collateral and systematic collection and publication of real estate sales data, and revisiting the interest rate cap may serve to moderately boost credit supply.
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
This article is an overview of existing deposit insurance in the European Union. There are various national deposit schemes that form the source of insurance. The schemes come up with various coverage, contributions, and fund sizes. The recent financial crisis has brought about a change in the coverage system. The main intention of this insurance is to enhance financial stability. The role of this insurance varies both within the EU and worldwide. This insurance is important to sustain financial integration and internal functioning.
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
and
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
The Slovenian financial system has been hard hit by the crisis. Banks remained highly vulnerable to continued credit deterioration and refinancing risks. Strengthening of financial condition of banks should be the short-term priority. The financial restructuring should be followed by privatization of state-controlled banks. The supervision of financial institutions should be complemented with a macroprudential overview geared toward overall stability of the financial system. The crisis preparedness and management framework should be improved, and risks to systemic financial stability should be identified.
International Monetary Fund. Monetary and Capital Markets Department
The Slovenian banking system has been transformed by Slovenia’s accession to the European Union. Banking sector regulation and supervision is generally in line with international standards. The global crisis affected Slovenia’s economy significantly, and most banks in the system were also affected adversely. The authorities have attempted to reduce the effects of the financial crisis with several countercyclical fiscal policy measures and a program to provide liquidity to the financial sector. Strengthening the financial condition of the banking system is the key priority.
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
Slovenia, among other euro area countries, experienced the largest economic contraction since 2008. The performance of Slovenian banks deteriorated markedly in recent years as a result of the unfavorable operating environment and weak governance. Despite some deleveraging, banks continued to depend heavily on wholesale funding from abroad. Slovenia’s rebalancing required relying on supply-side policies, in particular, the labor market. With the banking system under pressure and the corporate sector highly leveraged, the Executive Board recommended strengthening the regulatory and supervisory frameworks.
International Monetary Fund
Conceptual ambiguities and statistical weaknesses hamper the assessment of external competitiveness. The term competitiveness, while applied extensively, is often imprecisely defined, which can result in analytical errors and mistaken policy advice. Furthermore, aggregate statistical measures of competitiveness in terms of exchange rate misalignment can be biased. To address these issues, this paper makes two contributions. First, it clarifies the external competitiveness concept, highlighting the dichotomy between productivity-driven long-run growth and short-run deviations from the underlying growth trajectory, which can be related to exchange rate misalignment. Second, it develops a disaggregated statistical approach for examining competitiveness based on unit labor costs at the three digit industry level in a group of comparable countries. The case of Slovakia is used to illustrate these concepts, but the analytical insights have general application.