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Social Science > Demography

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 87 items for :

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Cover Selected Issues Papers
Taking Stock of Infrastructure in Malta
Alexander Pitt
Malta’s rapid growth over the past two decades has gone hand in hand with a significant expansion of the population. This has created bottlenecks in infrastructure, which will need to be addressed. While capacity in energy and water supply is currently adequate, investments in wastewater treatment and solid waste disposal are needed, as well as measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In transport, need for action to ease congestion is urgent, while the costs for a sustainable solution are high and implementation would take time.
Keywords:
Malta; infrastructure; energy; water supply; desalination; congestion; solid waste disposal; Malta's rapid growth; copyright page; RO plants; EU standard; Water resources; Population growth; Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
People’s Republic of China—Hong Kong Special Administrative Region: 2024 Article IV Consultation Discussions-Press Release; and Staff Report
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
The 2024 Article IV Consultation discusses that Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR)’s economy is on a path of gradual but uneven recovery following three years of recession since 2019. The removal of coronavirus disease (COVID)-related restrictions in early 2023 resulted in a strong rebound in domestic demand and inbound tourism in 2023H1, and decline in unemployment rate to historical lows. The outlook is subject to high uncertainty, with the balance of risks tilted to the downside. Key downside risks include a sharper-than-expected slowdown in Mainland China due to escalation of trade tensions or a deeper and more protracted adjustment in the property market. Tighter-for-longer monetary policy in the United States, rising geoeconomic fragmentation pressures, and increased regional competition could also weigh on growth. Continued efforts are needed to address long-term challenges posed by climate change. In order to mitigate the risk of falling short of emissions reduction targets, the authorities should prioritize regional collaboration with Mainland China to develop zero-carbon energy and improve energy efficiency in aging and poorly maintained buildings.
Keywords:
consultation discussion; exchange regime; surveillance topic; rate of HK; surveillance effort; Housing; Housing prices; Climate finance; Global; Asia and Pacific
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
People’s Republic of China—Hong Kong Special Administrative Region: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This Selected Issues paper focuses on the fiscal implications of population aging for Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR). Hong Kong SAR’s significant demographic pressures will create fiscal challenges for the authorities. Fiscal expenditure pressures from population aging have already been rising rapidly for over a decade and are expected to increase significantly in coming years, even without factoring in the cost of needed improvements to the social security system. Needed improvements to the social security system would further increase fiscal costs. An aging population is also going to adversely affect the economy’s potential output growth and fiscal revenue, with the effect larger in a scenario where the working age population shrinks. Revenue-boosting tax reforms and other fiscal measures will be needed to provide a stable funding base for Hong Kong SAR’s high-quality development into the medium term. Tax reforms should be designed to take into account the impact on the business environment, including from tax competitiveness vis-a-vis other financial centers.
Keywords:
C. Hong Kong SAR; D. Policy discussion; C. Policy implication; D. mainland Chinese firm; debt-servicing capacity; Climate change; Greenhouse gas emissions; Aging; Climate finance; Global
Cover High-Level Summary Technical Assistance Reports
Sierra Leone: Climate Policy Diagnostic
Christine J. Richmond
,
Katja Funke
,
Henk Jan Reinders
,
Sunalika Singh
, and
Karlygash Zhunussova
Sierra Leone faces important development challenges. This includes dealing with the impacts of climate change such as rising temperatures, more frequent extreme hot days, and increasingly erratic rainfall patterns, with intensified single-day precipitation events. This is especially important given the country’s strong dependence on agriculture and hydropower. Climate change also requires improved Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and more forward-looking risk assessments. On the mitigation side, competing development needs have led to rapid urbanization and deforestation requiring a more integrated approach to land policy, planning, and forest protection. The country also needs substantial investments in its electricity, water, and waste sectors but private investment is lacking. The mission reviewed the current fiscal policies supporting climate action and provided recommendations to support the long-term climate resilience in Sierra Leone, while aligning with its overall development objectives.
Keywords:
climate policy diagnostic; climate mitigation; climate change management; land management reform; mitigation side; Climate policy; Climate change; Water resources; Natural disasters
Cover Technical Assistance Reports
Sierra Leone: Technical Assistance Report-Climate Policy Diagnostic
International Monetary Fund. Fiscal Affairs Dept.
Sierra Leone faces important development challenges. This includes dealing with the impacts of climate change such as rising temperatures, more frequent extreme hot days, and increasingly erratic rainfall patterns, with intensified single-day precipitation events. This is especially important given the country’s strong dependence on agriculture and hydropower. Climate change also requires improved Disaster Risk Management (DRM) and more forward-looking risk assessments. On the mitigation side, competing development needs have led to rapid urbanization and deforestation requiring a more integrated approach to land policy, planning, and forest protection. The country also needs substantial investments in its electricity, water, and waste sectors but private investment is lacking. The mission reviewed the current fiscal policies supporting climate action and provided recommendations to support the long-term climate resilience in Sierra Leone, while aligning with its overall development objectives.
Keywords:
Climate policy; fiscal policy; climate adaptation; climate mitigation; Sierra Leone.; Sierra Leone roads authority; IMF resident Representative; climate policy diagnostic; policy consideration; Sierra Leone civil aviation authority; local government; land management; land tenure; Climate change; Natural disasters; Water resources; Global; Sub-Saharan Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Satellite-Based Census of Residential Buildings: Application for Climate Risk Assessment
Andinet Woldemichael
and
Iyke Maduako
Housing represents the largest asset and liability, in the form of mortgages, on most national balance sheet. For most households it is their largest investment, and when mortgages are required also represents the largest component of household debt. It is also directly tied to financial markets, both the mortgage market and insurance sector. Although many countries have a rich set of housing censuses and statistics, others have large data gap in this area and therefore struggle to formulate effective policies. This paper proposes an approach to construct a global census of residential buildings using opensource satellite data. Such a layer can be used to assess the extent these buildings are exposed to climate hazards and how their production and consumption, in turn, affect the climate. The approach we propose could be scaled globally, combining existing layers of building footprints, climate and socioeconomic data. It adds to the ongoing effort of compiling spatially explicit and granular climate indicators to better inform policies. As a case study, we compute selected indicators and estimate the extent of residential properties exposure to riverine flood risk for Kenya.
Keywords:
Census of buildings; Climate Exposure; Building Footprint; flood risk; property indicator; aggregate dwellings Capital Stock value; descriptive statistics of the data; flood hazard map; return period; Housing; Climate change; Stocks; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Vanuatu: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This Selected Issues paper discusses sea-level rise impacts and adaptation in Vanuatu. Sea-level will continue to increase during this century directly caused by global warming and melting of terrestrial ice. While Vanuatu cannot control global sea-level, it can manage how it affects the country by adapting. Staff analysis estimates the cost of sea-level rise under alternative adaptation strategies: (1) no-adaptation; (2) protection; and (3) planned retreat. Such analysis can help the government to identify trade-offs between efficiency and equity, and choose according to the preferences of the population, consistent with public finance objectives. Preliminary results show that complete protection of coastal areas in Vanuatu is costly while planned retreat from the coastline is the least-cost adaptation response. However, given the mountainous nature of the islands, only small areas of the main population centers of Port Vila and Luganville are at risk of being permanently inundated even with very high sea level rise.
Keywords:
summary statistics; sea-level rise; surface temperature; adaptation in Vanuatu; Vanuatu with CIAM; Climate change; Environmental policy; Natural disasters; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Adding Fuel to the Fire: How Weather Shocks Intensify Conflict
Sidra Rehman
and
Laura Jaramillo
Do weather shocks worsen conflict around the world? To answer this question, this paper uses an innovative dataset created by using georeferencing to match weather and conflict data at the subregional level on a monthly frequency across 168 countries over 2013 to 2022.The empirical results show that higher temperature exacerbate conflict where it already exists. Estimations indicate that, in a high emissions scenario and all else equal, by 2060 conflict deaths as a share of the population for a median country facing conflict could increase by 12.3 percent due to rising temperatures. These findings underscore the importance of integrating climate resilience into peace and security efforts and designing climate adaptation policies that support conflict prevention and resolution.
Keywords:
conflict; temperature; precipitation; climate change; weather shock; conflict intensity; IMF working paper No. 24/112; impact of weather; precipitation shock; Natural disasters; Food security; East Africa; Middle East
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Cyprus: Selected Issues
International Monetary Fund. European Dept.
This Selected Issues paper highlights disinflation and monetary transmission in Cyprus. Inflation in Cyprus dropped in 2023 due to the diminishing impact of supply-side shocks and moderating demand. However, some domestic price pressures persist, mostly from nonfiscal aggregate demand. The analysis suggests that high core inflation in 2023 was driven both by demand and supply factors. The post-pandemic inflation surge is attributed to both supply and demand factors, with the latter dominating most of the time. Wage dynamics will influence the inflation outlook. While risks of a wage-price spiral have declined substantially, the extent to which remaining demand pressures will affect future inflation will partly depend on wage dynamics. Deposit rates saw delayed and smaller increases, likely driven by high banking sector liquidity and low competition. Continued commitment to containing aggregate demand is supporting the final stage of disinflation. The last mile of disinflation would benefit from containing aggregate demand. While supply disruptions are no longer materially impacting inflation, domestic demand continues to put pressure on prices.
Keywords:
B. climate mitigation; Policy pass-through; green tax reform; International Monetary Fund Washington, d.c; drivers of inflation; IMF-WB CPAT tool; Inflation; Climate change; Natural disasters; Global; Europe
Cover IMF Working Papers
Harnessing Satellite Data to Improve Social Assistance Targeting in the Eastern Caribbean
Sophia Chen
,
Ryu Matsuura
,
Flavien Moreau
, and
Joana Pereira
Prioritizing populations most in need of social assistance is an important policy decision. In the Eastern Caribbean, social assistance targeting is constrained by limited data and the need for rapid support in times of large economic and natural disaster shocks. We leverage recent advances in machine learning and satellite imagery processing to propose an implementable strategy in the face of these constraints. We show that local well-being can be predicted with high accuracy in the Eastern Caribbean region using satellite data and that such predictions can be used to improve targeting by reducing aggregation bias, better allocating resources across areas, and proxying for information difficult to verify.
Keywords:
Social assistance targeting; satellite data; machine learning; Eastern Caribbean; Small Island Developing States.; aggregation bias; hard-to-verify information; satellite imagery processing; Income; Natural disasters; Caribbean