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Miyoko Asai
,
Qiaoe Chen
,
Mr. Jiro Honda
,
Xingwei Hu
, and
Qianqian Zhang
This paper examines the role of structural fiscal policies to promote female labor force participation and reduce gender gaps in labor markets in 26 OECD countries from 2000 to 2019. As both female labor force participation and many explanatory/control variables clearly exhibit non-stationarity (potentially leading to spurious regression results), we employ a panel vector error-correction model, in contrast with most previous empirical studies on this matter. Our analyses confirm statistically significant positive impacts of government spending on (1) early childcare and education, (2) active labor market programs, and (3) unemployment benefits, all of which would help encourage women to enter the labor force, while (4) an increase in relative tax rate on second earner could have negative impact on female labor force participation.
I develop a model of firm-to-firm search and matching to show that the impact of falling trade costs on firm sourcing decisions and consumer welfare depends on the relative size of search externalities in domestic and international markets. These externalities can be positive if firms share information about potential matches, or negative if the market is congested. Using unique firm-to-firm transaction-level data from Uganda, I document empirical evidence consistent with positive externalities in international markets and negative externalities in domestic markets. I then build a dynamic quantitative version of the model and show that, in Uganda, a 25% reduction in trade costs led to a 3.7% increase in consumer welfare, 12% of which was due to search externalities.
The Spring-Summer 2019 issue of the IMF Research Perspectives explores how technology deals with old questions. Articles discuss the ways technological progress and the increased availability of data have helped in some areas, while presenting new challenges for analyzing various matters. The issue also includes an interview with Gita Gopinath, the new director of the IMF Research Department.
International Monetary Fund. African Dept.
This Selected Issues paper tries to answer the question of how to promote employment in Uganda. It also discusses key stylized facts including labor market challenges, an overview of the labor market, and employment characteristics. Although issues relating to the determinants of employment are gaining momentum in Uganda, the literature is largely based on economic reports and qualitative studies. Uganda has implemented some social programs aimed at creating employment specifically for youth and women, though coverage is limited. These programs aim at providing an enabling environment for the private sector to create jobs and build the skills and requisite knowledge to make youth and women more employable. The existing social programs are good initiatives to address some of the labor market issues, though their coverage remains limited with funding constraints identified as one of the main challenges. Creating quality jobs will require comprehensive policies to promote headline growth and ensure inclusive growth, including measures to improve education and address challenges in gender and youth.
Mr. Masahiro Nozaki
How much of an internal rate of return would a sustainable pay-as-you-go pension system offer current and future generations equally? The answer is the sum of the Long-Run Biological Interest Rates (LBIR), the real-world equivalent of Samuelson’s (1958) biological interest rate, and future productivity growth. Reflecting global population ageing, the median LBIR across 172 countries is as low as 1 percent per year. The LBIRs are particularly low in advanced countries, estimated to be negative in many of them, and require ample financial reserves today or future productivity growth to maintain participation in pension schemes. On the other hand, the LBIRs in less developed regions, such as in sub-Saharan Africa, are relatively high, indicating a potential to use a pay-as-you-go scheme to expand the coverage of public pensions. Raising the retirement age by five years brings up the LBIR by 40 basis points, significantly improving the long-run budget constraint of a pension scheme.
Ms. Louise Fox
This paper reviews the evidence on how households in Sub-Saharan Africa segment along consumption, income and earning dimensions relevant for quantitative macroeconomic policy models which incorporate heterogeneity. Key findings include the importance of home-grown food in the income and consumption of house-holds well up the income distribution, the lack of formal financial inclusion for all but the richest households, and the importance of non-wage income. These stylized facts suggest that an externally-generated macroeconomic shock and the short-term policy response would mainly affect the behavior and welfare of these richer urban households, who are also more likely to have the means to cope. Middle class and poor households, especially in rural areas, should be insulated from these external shocks but vulnerable to a wide range of structural factors in the economy as well as idiosyncratic shocks.
Ms. Era Dabla-Norris
,
Yan Ji
,
Robert M. Townsend
, and
Ms. Filiz D Unsal
We develop a micro-founded general equilibrium model with heterogeneous agents to identify pertinent constraints to financial inclusion. We evaluate quantitatively the policy impacts of relaxing each of these constraints separately, and in combination, on GDP and inequality. We focus on three dimensions of financial inclusion: access (determined by the size of participation costs), depth (determined by the size of collateral constraints resulting from limited commitment), and intermediation efficiency (determined by the size of interest rate spreads and default possibilities due to costly monitoring). We take the model to a firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for six countries at varying degrees of economic development—three low-income countries (Uganda, Kenya, Mozambique), and three emerging market countries (Malaysia, the Philippines, and Egypt). The results suggest that alleviating different financial frictions have a differential impact across countries, with country-specific characteristics playing a central role in determining the linkages and tradeoffs between inclusion, GDP, inequality, and the distribution of gains and losses.
William Joseph Crandall
This technical note focuses on the concept of autonomy and describes why it is important in public administration. There has been a tendency for governments to increase the autonomy of their departments and agencies. The basic principle is that such autonomy can lead to better performance by removing impediments to effective and efficient management while maintaining appropriate accountability and transparency. This note explains how autonomy is relevant for revenue administration and what is the range of autonomy currently practiced. The paper also describes key measures of autonomy in revenue administration.
International Monetary Fund
Like most Sub-Saharan African countries, Kenya’s economic growth appears to have been primarily driven by factor accumulation. The Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix for Kenya examines economic developments and policies. During the last two decades, Kenya has been plagued by pervasive problems of internal conflicts, constitutional crises, and corruption scandals. The governance agenda focuses on several reforms, including upgrading the public budget and financial management systems, strengthening the anticorruption institutions, and improving the judicial framework.
International Monetary Fund. External Relations Dept.
El Boletín del FMI aborda de manera específica el trabajo del FMI y los grandes temas macroeconómicos y financieros internacionales y ofrece análisis sobre la evolución en los distintos países y regiones y en el mundo; información sobre las operaciones, políticas, reformas y asistencia técnica del FMI; síntesis de las principales investigaciones económicas mundiales; datos fundamentales que no suelen estar disponibles en otras fuentes, e informes sobre debates económicos y financieros que tienen lugar dentro y fuera del FMI. Este boletín de 16 páginas, publicado 12 veces al año, está orientado a una vasta audiencia, que incluye autoridades de política económica, analistas, profesionales del mundo académico y de los medios de difusión y estudiantes. Disponible en inglés, español y francés.