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International Monetary Fund. Western Hemisphere Dept.
The 2024 Article IV Consultation discusses that the Canadian economy appears to have achieved a soft landing: inflation has come down almost to target, while a recession has been avoided, with gross domestic product growth cushioned by surging immigration even as per capita income has shrunk. Housing unaffordability has risen to levels not seen in a generation, with demand boosted by immigration and supply facing continued challenges to expansion. Canada’s recent introduction of quantitative fiscal objectives is welcome and could be followed by adoption of a formal fiscal framework to anchor fiscal policy even more effectively. The authorities’ multipronged approach to address housing affordability is expected to yield results over time, but further efforts will likely be needed at all levels of government to address the large housing supply gap. Boosting Canada’s lagging productivity growth—including by taking steps to promote investment and R&D, harness artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies (within appropriate guardrails), and capitalize on the green transition—is a key priority for the country’s long-term prospects. Given skills gaps and demographic pressures, immigration remains a critical ingredient.
International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
The Fund has a range of modalities and tools to cover spillovers. However, there remains scope to enhance synergies between global and country-specific spillover coverage and to foster cross-country dialogue. Practical guidance and enhanced information-sharing would also allow for more systematic surveillance of spillovers. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the need to continue expanding the research frontier covering new spillovers and channels and developing new tools and data sets. Therefore, filling these remaining gaps in the Fund’s spillover work would allow for a more coordinated and evenhanded surveillance of spillovers.
International Monetary Fund. Asia and Pacific Dept
This Selected Issues paper discusses interactions between external risks and the New Zealand economy. The current set of external risks has the potential to be extremely damaging to New Zealand, but two factors would likely mitigate the economic impact. First, the flexible exchange rate regime is a reliable shock absorber and automatic stabilizer from the perspective of GDP, although it leads to a rebalancing between the domestic and external sectors in the economy. Second, net migration flows can reduce the negative impact of lower external demand under some circumstances, such as a growth slowdown in Australia. Fiscal policy could also offset some of the short-term costs of adjustment. Fiscal policy can provide stimulus at relatively small and manageable cost to the already-low government debt to GDP ratio. Moreover, at the current juncture, fiscal policy might need to provide the bulk of policy support against negative shocks, as monetary policy might be ineffective if has become constrained by an effective lower bound on the monetary policy interest rate.
International Monetary Fund. External Relations Dept.
Technology is generating a global convergence. A "big bang" of information—and education as well—is improving human lives. And with global interconnectivity growing by leaps and bounds, we are all witness to a rapid spread of information and ideas. But, as we have seen from the prolonged global financial crisis, our interconnectedness carries grave risks as well as benefits. This issue of F&D looks at different aspects of interconnectedness, globally and in Asia. • Brookings VP Kemal Devis presents the three fundamental trends in the global economy affecting the balance between east and west in "World Economy: Convergence, Interdependence, and Divergence." • In "Financial Regionalism," Akihiro Kawai and Domenico Lombardi tell us how regional arrangements are helping global financial stability. • In "Migration Meets Slow Growth," Migration Policy Institute president Demetrios Papademetriou examines how the global movement of workers will change as the economic crisis continues in advanced economies. • "Caught in the Web" explains new ways of looking at financial interconnections in a globalized world. • IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde provides her take on the benefits of integration and the risks of fragmentation in "Straight Talk." Also in this issue, we take a closer look at interconnectedness across Asia as we explore how trade across the region is affected by China's falling trade surplus, how India and China might learn from each others' success, and what Myanmar's reintegration into the global economy means for its people. F&D's People in Economics series profiles Justin Yifu Lin, first developing country World Bank economist, and the Back to Basics series explains the origins and evolution of money.
Mr. Samir Jahjah
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Mr. Ralph Chami
, and
Connel Fullenkamp
The role of remittances in development and economic growth is not well understood. This is partly because the literatures on the causes and effects of remittances remain separate. We develop a framework that links the motivation for remittances with their effect on economic activity. Because remittances take place under asymmetric information and economic uncertainty, there exists a significant moral hazard problem. The implication is that remittances have a negative effect on economic growth. We test this prediction using panel methods on a large sample of countries. The results indicate that remittances do have a negative effect on economic growth, which indicates that the moral hazard problem in remittances is severe.