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Europe > Ukraine

You are looking at 1 - 10 of 68 items for :

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Cover IMF Working Papers
Designing Expenditure Policy Conditionality in IMF-Supported Programs
Emine Hanedar
and
Zsuzsa Munkacsi
This gap-filling paper provides granular advice on how to design quantitative and structural conditionality of IMF-supported programs in six expenditure policy areas: social assistance, energy subsidies, pension spending, health spending, education spending, and wage bill management. Such granular advice is based on a stocktaking exercise: an analysis of 105 programs approved between 2002 and July 2021 containing a ca. 1400 conditions. Conditions are key to identify outcomes or actions seen as critical for program success or monitoring, and so are essential for financial support countries can receive from the Fund.
Keywords:
IMF-supported programs; conditionality; expenditure policy; social assistance; energy subsidies; pension spending; health spending; education spending; wage bill management; policy conditionality; policy area; IMF working papers; reform plan; E. public health spending; Health care spending; Caribbean; North Africa; Middle East; East Africa; Europe
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Sierra Leone: Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This paper highlights Sierra Leone’s Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy. The Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) has launched a new Medium-Term National Development Plan (MTNDP). Crucial lessons have been learned in the implementation of the previous plan 2019-2023 that are important for the current acceleration and transformative plan to deliver a resilient and robust economy for Sierra Leone by 2030. Accordingly, five national goals for 2030 have been identified to accelerate efforts toward achieving the country’s vision of becoming an inclusive and green middle-income country by 2039. One of the goals is to create 500,000 jobs for the youth (with at least a 30% representation of women), including skilled and unskilled, long term, as well as seasonal jobs across all sectors by 2030 (directly related to Big 5.3). While the agriculture industry experienced modest growth, its reliance on the domestic market has impeded the ability to expand agricultural exports.
Keywords:
government ministry; Medium-Term National Development Plan; government of Sierra Leone; Sierra Leone economy; Development secretary Mr. Peter Sam-Kpakra; Public sector; Global; Africa; West Africa; Sub-Saharan Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
How do Economic Growth and Food Inflation Affect Food Insecurity?
Christian Bogmans
,
Andrea Pescatori
, and
Ervin Prifti
During the global recession of 2020 food insecurity increased substantially in many countries around the world. Fortunately, the surge in food insecurity quickly came to a halt as the world economy returned to its positive growth path, despite double-digit domestic food inflation in most countries. To shed light on the relative importance of income growth and food inflation in driving food insecurity, we employ a heterogeneous-agent model with income inequality, complemented by novel cross-country data for the period 2001-2021. We use external instruments (changes in commodity terms-of-trade, external economic growth, and harvest shocks) to isolate exogenous variation in domestic income growth and ood inflation. Our findings suggest that income growth is the dominant driver of annual variations in food insecurity, while food price inflation plays a somewhat smaller role, aligning with our model predictions.
Keywords:
Food insecurity; inclusive growth; food inflation; inequality; diet.; food inflation affect food insecurity; food price inflation; affect food insecurity; income growth; Food security; Income; Food prices; Inflation; Price elasticity; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Heterogeneous Effects of Uncertainty on Trade
Ibrahim Nana
,
Rasmané Ouedraogo
, and
Sampawende J Tapsoba
This paper empirically investigates the relationship between uncertainty and trade. We use a gravity model for 143 countries over the 1980-2021 period to assess the impact of uncertainty on bilateral trade. We confirm that, in general, uncertainty has a negative impact on trade. The findings suggest that a one standard deviation increase in global uncertainty is associated with a decline in bilateral trade by 4.5 percent, with fuel and industrial products trade being the most impacted. This negative impact is observed for uncertainty on both sides of the border, with a higher impact of uncertainty from the importing country. The article goes deeper into the analysis and shows that deeper trade integration (horizontal integration) mitigates the negative impact of uncertainty on trade. In contrast, higher participation in global value chains (vertical integration) amplifies the negative effect of uncertainty on trade. We find that geopolitical tensions amplify the deterrent effect of uncertainty on trade. Finally, the result is heterogeneous across income levels, regions, and resource endowment: (a) uncertainty has a negative impact on bilateral trade between Emerging Markets and Developing Economies and Advanced Economies; however, (b) at the regional level, Africa and Europe’s intraregional trade decrease as uncertainty surges. (c) Evidence shows that non-resources-rich countries are more at risk.
Keywords:
Trade; Uncertainty; Geopolitics; Global Value Chains; Gravity model; trade decrease; sectoral trade; bilateral trade; importing country; resource endowment; Plurilateral trade; Exports; Imports; Gravity models; COVID-19; Global; Middle East; Europe; Africa
Cover IMF Working Papers
Changing Global Linkages: A New Cold War?
Gita Gopinath
,
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas
,
Andrea F Presbitero
, and
Petia Topalova
Global linkages are changing amidst elevated geopolitical tensions and a surge in policies directed at increasing supply chain resilience and national security. Using granular bilateral data, this paper provides new evidence of trade and investment fragmentation along geopolitical lines since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and compares it to the historical experience of the early years of the Cold War. Gravity model estimates point to significant declines in trade and FDI flows between countries in geopolitically distant blocs since the onset of the war in Ukraine, relative to flows between countries in the same bloc (roughly 12% and 20%, respectively). While the extent of fragmentation is still relatively small and we do not know how longlasting it will be, the decoupling between the rival geopolitical blocs during the Cold War suggests it could worsen considerably should geopolitical tensions persist and trade restrictive policies intensify. Different from the early years of the Cold War, a set of nonaligned ‘connector’ countries are rapidly gaining importance and serving as a bridge between blocs. The emergence of connectors has likely brought resilience to global trade and activity, but does not necessarily increase diversification, strengthen supply chains, or lessen strategic dependence.
Keywords:
Trade; Foreign direct investment; Geoeconomics; Fragmentation; supply chain resilience; restrictive policy; nonaligned connector; years of the Cold War; surge in policy; Trade balance; Imports; Trade agreements; Trade policy; Global
Cover IMF Working Papers
Who Pays the Bill? Distributional and Fiscal Consequences of Elevated Inflation in Thailand
Piyaporn Chote
,
Corinne C Delechat
,
Thanaphol Kongphalee
,
Vatsal Nahata
,
Mouhamadou Sy
,
Pym Manopimoke
, and
Tamon Yungvichit
This paper analyzes the distributional impacts of inflation in Thailand. For that aim, the paper uses rich micro-survey data on 46,000 Thai households to study the effect of the recent elevated inflation on poverty, its distributional effects on different income levels, and the fiscal cost to compensate households from real income losses. To study the multidimensional impact of inflation, the paper also studies how inflation differentially affects households through the consumption, income, and wealth channel. The analysis shows that under a baseline scenario, poverty in Thailand could increase by 1.3 percentage points—about 900,000 people—in the absence of government intervention. Targeted fiscal support to only compensate households that are below the national poverty line from rising inflation amount to 0.05 percent of GDP. However, fiscal support to compensate relatively rich households, defined as those above the median of the income distribution, amount to 1.4 percent of GDP. Moreover, due to high levels of debt, richer households benefit from inflation relative to poorer households. Finally, the paper also delves into policy responses undertaken by the Thai government and Asian and emerging economies to mitigate elevated inflation.
Keywords:
Inflation; poverty; inflation dynamics; income effect; fiscal cost.; elevated inflation; inflation component; rising prices; energy price; Income; Energy prices; Consumption; Food prices; Global; Asia and Pacific
Cover IMF Working Papers
The Shifting and Steepening of Phillips Curves During the Pandemic Recovery: International Evidence and Some Theory
Tryggvi Gudmundsson
,
Chris Jackson
, and
Rafael A Portillo
We study the global inflation surge during the pandemic recovery and the implications for aggregate and sectoral Phillips curves. We provide evidence that Phillips curves shifted up and steepened across advanced economies, and that differences in the inflation response across sectors imply the relative price of goods has been pro-cyclical this time around rather than a-cyclical as during previous cycles. We show analytically that these three features emerge endogenously in a two-sector new-Keynesian model when we introduce unbalanced recoveries that run against a supply constraint in the goods sector. A calibrated exercise shows that the resulting changes to the output-inflation relation are quantitatively important and improve the model's ability to replicate the inflation surge during this period.
Keywords:
Inflation; Phillips Curves; COVID-19; inflation surge; output-inflation relation; sectoral Phillips curves; inflation response; goods price; Output gap; Business cycles; Economic recession; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Somalia: Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper-Joint Staff Advisory Note
International Monetary Fund. Middle East and Central Asia Dept.
This Joint Staff Advisory Note (JSAN) on the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper for Somalia highlights that Somalia continued to face challenges while implementing the Ninth National Development Plan in 2021 and 2022. Since 2020, the country has been struggling with the ongoing impacts of a desert locust infestation, persistent drought, the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and global food and fuel price increases due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. All of these shocks compounded the hardships of the population, including food insecurity. The number of people facing food insecurity due to the drought rose from 3.2 million in January 2022 to5.6 million by end-2022. Parliamentary and Presidential elections that were supposed to commence by end-2020 were not completed until in May 2022, also affecting the timing of external grant disbursements. The mid-term review report addresses concerns raised in staffs’ previous JSAN on Enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) Completion Point, climate change, and revenue mobilization. In terms of progress toward the HIPC Completion Point, as of September 2023 the government has completed 13 of 14 Completion Point triggers.
Keywords:
member country's Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper; Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper to the executive boards; copyright page; objective of the JSAN; government program; Poverty reduction strategy; Global
Cover Policy Papers
Interim Review of Access Limits Under the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust and Initial Considerations for Access Limits under the General Resource Account
International Monetary Fund. Strategy, Policy, & Review Department
The interim review on PRGT access limits follows the call from the Executive Board in March 2023 and confirmed by the IMFC in October 2023. Low-income countries (LICs) face high economic uncertainty and pressures, while grappling with limited policy space and a funding squeeze. In March 2023, access limits under the General Resources Account (GRA) were temporarily increased for 12 months to give space for countries to face such economic pressures. The IMF Executive Board emphasized the importance of the alignment of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) access limits with those of the GRA that was achieved in 2021. The Board also agreed that, once substantial progress with PRGT fundraising toward the SDR 2.3 billion first-stage target for subsidy resources agreed in 2021 has been made—with total pledges of SDR 2 billion or more—access limits under the PRGT would be reviewed at an ad hoc interim review. This target has now been reached, paving the way for the review, also called for by the IMFC during the Annual Meetings in October 2023, in a context where the LICs’ economic challenges have further increased, including due to the risk of additional negative spillovers on the global economy stemming from the current geopolitical tensions and conflicts.
Keywords:
Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust; PRGT; low-income countries; LICs; General Resources Account (GRA); PRGT resource; PRGT financing strategy; PRGT lending; PRGT access norm; PRGT commitment; Concessional external borrowing; Debt sustainability; Poverty reduction strategy; Balance of payments need; Credit risk; Global
Cover IMF Staff Country Reports
Cote d'Ivoire: Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This paper presents Côte d'Ivoire’s poverty reduction and growth strategy. The macroeconomic framework has been sound, with low inflation, a sustainable public sector, a robust banking system and a balanced external position. Poverty in Côte d'Ivoire has been steadily decreasing since 2016, continuing the trend observed since early 2011. Access to electricity has improved throughout the national territory. Actions have been undertaken to enhance the economy’s productivity through the strengthening of infrastructure and governance. In particular, Côte d’Ivoire is committed to advancing equality between men and women in all areas of public and private life, in order to empower women economically, socially, and politically and achieve a more egalitarian society. The government has undertaken to step up actions in favor of girls' education, increase access rates.
Keywords:
Ivorian government; government plan; Ivorian authority; government's Social Program; medium-term development strategy; social action; Climate change; Global; Sub-Saharan Africa; Africa