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Europe > Slovenia, Republic of

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  • Type: Journal Issue x
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Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Republic of Slovenia: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper focuses on boosting productivity in Slovenia. Slovenia’s ageing population sets a constraint on the contribution of labor to gross domestic product in the end.Only achieve sustained increases in income and living standards can, therefore, through investment in physical and human capital and, more importantly, through enhancing productivity, historically the key growth driver. This paper summarizes historical trends in growth and productivity in Slovenia, examines the country’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of key factors affecting productivity identified in the literature. Since the scope for future labor contributions to growth in Slovenia is limited for demographic reasons—apart from further improvements to labor quality—the focus of economic growth policies should be on reinvigorating private investment, which has been low over the past decade, and pursuing labor and product market reforms that boost total factor productivity growth.
Keywords:
productivity trend; firm leverage; labor market indicator; I. shift share methodology; EU growth composition; Productivity; Total factor productivity; Labor force; Private investment; Europe; Central and Eastern Europe; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Usability of Bank Capital Buffers: The Role of Market Expectations
José Abad
Following the COVID shock, supervisors encouraged banks to use capital buffers to support the recovery. However, banks have been reluctant to do so. Provided the market expects a bank to rebuild its buffers, any draw-down will open up a capital shortfall that will weigh on its share price. Therefore, a bank will only decide to use its buffers if the value creation from a larger loan book offsets the costs associated with a capital shortfall. Using market expectations, we calibrate a framework for assessing the usability of buffers. Our results suggest that the cases in which the use of buffers make economic sense are rare in practice.
Keywords:
Capital Buffers; Basel III; Capital Regulation; Financial Institutions; Macropru; valuation model; buffer Usability; market expectation; bank Capital Structure; capital shortfall; Countercyclical capital buffers; Correspondent banking; Loans; Market capitalization; COVID-19; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Republic of Slovenia: 2021 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for the Republic of Slovenia
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
The pandemic is inflicting much suffering, which has been met with swift, substantial, and well-coordinated policy responses. The anti-crisis measures have helped preserve jobs, provide liquidity to companies and income support to the vulnerable groups. They averted a larger decline in output and kept unemployment under control. After contracting by 5.5 percent in 2020, real GDP is projected to grow by 3.9 percent in 2021 and 4.5 percent in 2022, as vaccinations help achieve herd immunity. However, risks to the outlook are large and tilted to the downside, given the epidemiological situation.
Keywords:
savings-investment gap; Policy discussion; money market rate; government finance statistic yearbook; liquidity position; COVID-19; Loans; Nonperforming loans; Government finance statistics; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Republic of Slovenia: Technical Assistance Report-Establishing a Spending Review Process
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
This paper discusses key findings and recommendations of the Technical Assistance report on establishing a spending review process in Slovenia. Slovenia’s fragile fiscal situation requires further consolidation to ensure that the upward trajectory of public debt does not threaten long-term fiscal sustainability. Spending in the education sector is the fourth-highest spending level. Spending pressures also need to be explicitly identified, quantified, and included in the spending review to better inform the government’s decision making process. There is also a need to update existing performance information associated with government expenditure programs to ensure that more meaningful information focused on achieving desired outcomes is developed to better inform future reviews.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; government employment; spending pressure; early retirement; EUROSTAT General government statistic; expenditure increase; policy option; policy objective; EUROSTAT General government statistics; policy priority; wage bill; statistics database; government policy-makers; Public expenditure review; Budget planning and preparation; Europe; Eastern Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Economic Transition and Health Care Reform: The Experience of Europe and Central Asia
Adam Leive
This paper exploits the staggered adoption of major concurrent health reforms in countries in Europe and Central Asia after 1990 to estimate their impact on public health expenditure, utilization, and avoidable deaths. While the health systems all derived from the same paradigm under central planning, they have since introduced changes to policies regarding cost-sharing, provider payment, financing, and the rationalization of hospital infrastructure. Social health insurance is predicted to increase this share, although the leads of both social health insurance and primary care fee-for-service suggest endogeneity may be an issue with the outpatient share regressions. Provider payment reforms produce the largest impact on spending, with fee-for-service increasing spending and patient-based payment reducing it. The impact on avoidable deaths is generally negligible, but there is some evidence of improvements due to fee-for-service. Considering the corresponding relative reduction in inpatient admissions and the incentives fee-for-service provides to deliver additional services, perhaps there is an overprovision of services in the primary care setting and an underutilization of more specialized hospital services.
Keywords:
WP; hospital PBP; hospital fee-for-service; payment reform; hospital payment variable; hospital payment coefficient
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Republic of Croatia: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund
The first analysis focuses on external stability, an important issue in view of Croatia’s external imbalances and the requirements of the IMF’s 2007 Decision on Bilateral Surveillance. The paper shows that the real exchange rate is broadly in line with economic fundamentals and that external debt dynamics are sustainable as long as macroeconomic policies remain strong. The second analysis finds significant inefficiencies in Croatia’s social spending. It also discusses several reform measures to reduce inefficiencies in public spending and generate budgetary savings to reduce the general government deficit.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; Croatia; GDP; spending; balance; debt; efficiency score; student-teacher ratio; system efficiency; education outcome; NICA balance; poverty rate; school enrollment; OECD country; Current account balance; Health care spending; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Government Spending on Health Care and Education in Croatia: Efficiency and Reform Options
Ms. Victoria Gunnarsson
and
Mr. Etibar Jafarov
This paper assesses the relative efficiency of government spending on health care and education in Croatia by using the so-called Data Envelopment Analysis. The analysis finds evidence of significant inefficiencies in Croatia's spending on health care and education, related to inadequate cost recovery, weaknesses in the financing mechanisms and institutional arrangements, weak competition in the provision of these services, and weaknesses in targeting public subsidies on health care and education. These inefficiencies suggest that government spending on health and education could be reduced without undue sacrifices in the quality of these services. The paper identifies ways to do that.
Keywords:
WP; expenditure; Croatia; public spending; mortality rate
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Health Sector in the Slovak Republic: Efficiency and Reform
Ms. Victoria Gunnarsson
,
Sergio Lugaresi
, and
Marijn Verhoeven
The paper assesses the financial situation of the health sector in the Slovak Republic. It also evaluates the efficiency of health expenditures and service delivery in comparison to the OECD and other new EU member states and suggests avenues for cost recovery and reform. The health sector of the Slovak Republic is plagued by financial problems. To turn around health system finances and achieve larger gains in health outcomes, the efficiency of health spending needs to increase and the mix and quality of real health resources need to be improved. Although Slovak's overall health spending efficiency is on par with that of the OECD, substantial inefficiencies occur in the process of transforming intermediate health inputs into health outcomes. Efficiency may be enhanced by containing the cost of drugs and reducing reliance on hospital care. Also, although cost-effectiveness may be relatively high at present, its sustainability in the future is an issue.
Keywords:
WP; Slovakia; government
Cover IMF Working Papers
Budget Rigidity and Expenditure Efficiency in Slovenia
Mr. Todd D. Mattina
and
Ms. Victoria Gunnarsson
This paper assesses the relative efficiency and flexibility of public spending in Slovenia compared to the advanced and new EU member states. Spending on health care, education, and social protection is relatively high in Slovenia without achieving correspondingly better outcomes. Inefficiencies appear to stem from the financing mechanisms for social services, institutional arrangements, and the weak targeting of social benefits. In addition, the composition of spending appears to be strongly tilted towards nondiscretionary items that reduce the fiscal room for maneuver. Greater flexibility is needed to facilitate the reallocation of relatively inefficient expenditure into higher priorities. In this manner, medium-term expenditure rationalization can focus on reducing inefficient outlays rather than restraining traditionally flexible components of the budget, such as public investment.
Keywords:
WP; Slovenia; wage; budget; country; efficiency score; GDP
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper—Mid-Term Development Strategy
International Monetary Fund
Poverty risk is most marked for children, displaced persons and returnees, unemployed, and people with low education. Basic goals of the macroeconomic framework of the mid-term development strategy of Bosnia and Herzegovina are to reduce the overall public expenditures, lower the public debt, and to bring the current account deficit to a sustainable level through fiscal consolidation. The strategy is to attract more foreign investment, create conditions for a more efficient privatization process, and to ensure new cycles of donor assistance.
Keywords:
ISCR; CR; gross domestic product; private sector; banking sector; feasibility study; investment funds; production system; economic development; Medium-Term Development Strategy; public expenditure; BiH law; foreign trade; Health care; Global; Europe; Eastern Europe