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Social Science > Demography

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 27 items for :

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Cover IMF Working Papers
Prometheus Unbound: What Makes Fintech Grow?
Serhan Cevik
The rise of financial technologies—fintech—could have transformative effects on the financial landscape, expanding the reach of services beyond the confines of geography and creating new competitive sources of finance for households and firms. But what makes fintech grow? Why do some countries have more financial innovation than others? In this paper, I use a comprehensive dataset to investigate the emergence and spread of fintech in a diverse panel of 98 countries over the period 2012–2020. This empirical analysis helps ascertain economic, demographic, technological and institutional factors that enable the development of fintech. The magnitude and statistical significance of these factors vary according to the type of fintech instrument and the level of economic development (advanced economies vs. developing countries). Finally, these findings reveal that policies and structural reforms can help promote financial innovation and cultivate fintech ventures—particularly by strengthening technological and institutional infrastructures and reducing cybersecurity threats.
Keywords:
Fintech; financial innovation; technological change; cybersecurity threat; fintech venture; copyright page; government stability foster fintech growth; fintech transaction; Digital financial services; Financial sector development; Population growth; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Government Debt and Growth: The Role of R&D
Can Sever
Economic growth in the advanced economies (AEs) has been slowing down since the early 2000s, while government debt ratios have been rising. The recent surge in debt at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has further intensified concerns about these phenomena. This paper aims to offer insight into the high-debt low-growth environment in AEs by exploring a causal link from government debt to future growth, specifically through the impact of debt on R&D activities. Using data from manufacturing industries since the 1980s, it shows that (i) government debt leads to a decline in growth, particularly in R&D-intensive industries; (ii) the differential effect of government debt on these industries is persistent; and (iii) more developed or open financial systems tend to mitigate this negative impact. These findings contribute to our understanding of the relationship between government debt and growth in AEs, given the role of technological progress and innovation in economic growth.
Keywords:
Government debt; fiscal policy; economic growth; R&D; innovation; financial development; economic growth in the advanced economies; R&D activity; impact of debt; debt level; affect tax dynamics; Financial sector development; Manufacturing; Productivity; Aging; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Inflated Concerns: Exposure to Past Inflationary Episodes and Preferences for Price Stability
Nicolas E Magud
and
Samuel Pienknagura
Using individual-level survey data for both advanced economies and emerging markets spanning over 45 years for 42 countries, we show that cohorts who have had higher exposure to past inflationary episodes (levels, as well as to more persistent or to more volatile inflation), systematically express higher concerns over rising prices. The link between past high inflation exposure and expressed concerns over price stability is particularly strong when an individual’s exposure occurs in the latter part of her working-age (as in lifecycle theory). The impact of past exposure to high inflation on contemporaneous preferences over price stability increases when surveyed in the midst of high ongoing inflation and with macroeconomic instability (as measured by GDP growth volatility), but diminishes with the quality of institutions.
Keywords:
Price Stability; Inflation; Individual Preferences; Learning from Experience; volatile inflation; inflated concern; rising prices; inflation episode; inflation exposure; inflation expectation; inflation concern; Price stabilization; Aging; Emerging and frontier financial markets
Cover Selected Issues Papers
Financial Inclusion in Niger: Challenges and Opportunities: Niger
Yoro Diallo
,
Mr. Arsene Kaho
, and
Can Sever
Financial inclusion can increase economic growth and productivity and reduce poverty and inequality by helping people and firms—particularly SMEs—to save and invest, smooth consumption, and better manage financial risks. This paper highlights Niger’s lag compared to other WAEMU countries in terms of access to and use of formal financial services, including for women and youth, and underscores key demand and supply side challenges to financial inclusion as well as structural impediments. It lays out key priorities for Niger to harness the potential of greater financial inclusion to support the country’s development agenda, including efforts to tackle low financial literacy, promote digitization, and address informality.
Keywords:
Financial Inclusion; Financial Institutions; Niger; Niger's lag; development agenda; Niger banking sector; MFI sector NPL ratio; BCEAO MFI; IMF staff calculation; Digital financial services; Digital currencies; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Estimating Digital Infrastructure Investment Needs to Achieve Universal Broadband
Edward Oughton
,
Mr. David Amaglobeli
, and
Mr. Mariano Moszoro
We develop a detailed model to evaluate the necessary investment requirements to achieve affordable universal broadband. The results indicate that approximately $418 billion needs to be mobilized to connect all unconnected citizens globally (targeting 40-50 GB/Month per user with 95 percent reliability). The bulk of additional investment is for emerging market economies (73 percent) and low-income developing countries (24 percent). We also find that if the data consumption level is lowered to 10-20 GB/Month per user, the total cost decreases by up to about half, whereas raising data consumption to 80-100 GB/Month per user leads to a cost increase of roughly 90 percent relative to the baseline. Moreover, a 40 percent cost decrease occurs when varying the peak hour quality of service level from the baseline 95 percent reliability, to only 50 percent reliability. To conclude, broadband policy assessments should be explicit about the quantity of data and the reliability of service provided to users. Failure to do so will lead to inaccurate estimates and, ultimately, to poor broadband policy decisions.
Keywords:
Broadband; Digital Infrastructure; Public Investment; Sustainable Development Goals; cost decrease; investment requirement; infrastructure investment; cost sensitivity; data consumption; policy assessment; estimation metrics; cost driver; data traffic; infrastructure cost modeling; Digitalization; Infrastructure; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Sub-Saharan Africa; Global; Caribbean; Central Asia and the Caucasus; Asia and Pacific
Cover Regional Economic Outlook, October 2021, Asia and Pacific
Regional Economic Outlook, October 2021, Asia and Pacific
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept

Abstract

Fall 2021 Regional Economic Outlook: Asia and Pacific--Navigating Waves of New Variants: Pandemic Resurgence Slows the Recovery

Keywords:
vaccine rollout; GVC trade; vaccine deployment; pandemic cycle; trade openness; COVID-19; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Trade barriers; Asia and Pacific; Global; Pacific Islands; North America
Cover IMF Working Papers
A Pandemic Forecasting Framework: An Application of Risk Analysis
Allan Dizioli
,
Daniel Rivera Greenwood
, and
Aneta Radzikowski
This paper introduces a simple, frequently and easily updated, close to the data epidemiological model that has been used for near-term forecast and policy analysis. We provide several practical examples of how the model has been used. We explain the epidemic development in the UK, the USA and Brazil through the model lens. Moreover, we show how our model would have predicted that a super infectious variant, such as the delta, would spread and argue that current vaccination levels in many countries are not enough to curb other waves of infections in the future. Finally, we briefly discuss the importance of how to model re-infections in epidemiological models.
Keywords:
COVID-19; epidemiology modelling; vaccines impact; virus variants and testing; vaccine hesitancy; vaccination data; Google mobility; virus variant; vaccination assumption; COVID-19; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Aging; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Measuring Digital Financial Inclusion in Emerging and Developing Economies: A New Index
Purva Khera
,
Miss Stephanie Y Ng
,
Ms. Sumiko Ogawa
, and
Ms. Ratna Sahay
Adoption of technology in the financial services industry (i.e. fintech) has been accelerating in recent years. To systematically and comprehensively assess the extent and progress over time in financial inclusion enabled by technology, we develop a novel digital financial inclusion index. This index is based on payments data covering 52 developing countries for 2014 and 2017, taking into account both access and usage dimentions of digital financial services (DFSs). This index is then combined with the traditional measures of financial inclusion in the literature and aggregated into an overall index of financial inlusion. There are two key findings: first, the adoption of fintech has been a key driver of financial inclusion. Second, there is wide variation across countries and regions, with the greatest progress recorded in Africa and Asia and the Pacific regions. This index should offer a useful analytical tool for researchers and policy makers.
Keywords:
Fintech; digital financial services; financial inclusion; financial services industry; adoption of technology; capital markets department; services play; account ownership; Mobile banking; Caribbean; Asia and Pacific; Global; Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Overfitting in Judgment-based Economic Forecasts: The Case of IMF Growth Projections
Klaus-Peter Hellwig
I regress real GDP growth rates on the IMF’s growth forecasts and find that IMF forecasts behave similarly to those generated by overfitted models, placing too much weight on observable predictors and underestimating the forces of mean reversion. I identify several such variables that explain forecasts well but are not predictors of actual growth. I show that, at long horizons, IMF forecasts are little better than a forecasting rule that uses no information other than the historical global sample average growth rate (i.e., a constant). Given the large noise component in forecasts, particularly at longer horizons, the paper calls into question the usefulness of judgment-based medium and long-run forecasts for policy analysis, including for debt sustainability assessments, and points to statistical methods to improve forecast accuracy by taking into account the risk of overfitting.
Keywords:
WP; growth projection; WEO forecast; LASSO coefficient; bootstrapped sample; shrinkage coefficient; Forecasting; GDP growth; machine learning; Personal income; Real exchange rates; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Population growth; Global; inflation dynamics; IMF growth projection; Euro area inflation dynamics; copyright page; area inflation dynamics; Income
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Effects of Weather Shocks on Economic Activity: What are the Channels of Impact?
Mr. Sebastian Acevedo Mejia
,
Mr. Mico Mrkaic
,
Natalija Novta
,
Evgenia Pugacheva
, and
Petia Topalova
Global temperatures have increased at an unprecedented pace in the past 40 years. This paper finds that increases in temperature have uneven macroeconomic effects, with adverse consequences concentrated in countries with hot climates, such as most low-income countries. In these countries, a rise in temperature lowers per capita output, in both the short and medium term, through a wide array of channels: reduced agricultural output, suppressed productivity of workers exposed to heat, slower investment, and poorer health. In an unmitigated climate change scenario, and under very conservative assumptions, model simulations suggest the projected rise in temperature would imply a loss of around 9 percent of output for a representative low-income country by 2100.
Keywords:
WP; economic activity; dependent variable; Climate change; Environoment and growth; Climate policy; temperature increase; developing country; temperature shock; productivity effect; infant mortality; Public expenditure review; Emerging and frontier financial markets; Productivity; Global