Africa > Uganda

You are looking at 1 - 3 of 3 items for :

  • Type: Journal Issue x
  • Macroeconomics: Consumption; Saving; Wealth x
Clear All Modify Search
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.
Mr. Rafael A Portillo
and
Luis-Felipe Zanna
We develop a tractable small open-economy model to study the first-round effects of international food price shocks in developing countries. We define first-round effects as changes in headline inflation that, holding core inflation constant, help implement relative price adjustments. The model features three goods (food, a generic traded good and a non-traded good), varying degrees of tradability of the food basket, and alternative international asset market structures (complete and incomplete markets, and financial autarky). First-round effects depend crucially on the asset market structure and the different transmission mechanisms they trigger. Under complete markets, inter-temporal substitution prevails, making the inflationary impact of international food prices proportional to the food share in consumption, which in developing economies is typically large. Under financial autarky, the income channel is dominant, and first-round effects are instead proportional to the country's food balance—the difference between the country's food endowment and its consumption—which in developing countries is typically small. The latter result holds regardless of the degree of food tradability. Incomplete markets yield a combination of the two extremes. Our results cast some doubt on the view that international food price shocks are inherently inflationary in developing countries.
Mr. Amor Tahari
,
Mr. M. Nowak
,
Mr. Michael T. Hadjimichael
, and
Mr. Robert L. Sharer

Abstract

Over the past two decades, sub-Saharan Africa has lagged behind other regions in economic performance. The important overall indicators of performance, however, mask wide differences among countries. On the whole, countries that effectively implemented comprehensive adjustment and reform programs showed better results. Their experiences demonstrate that an expansion in private saving and investment is key to achieving gains in real per capita GDP. The four papers included in this publication provide a cross country analysis that assesses empirically the role of publlic policies in stimulating private saving and investment in the region in 1986-92 and describe the adjustment experiences of Ghana (1983-91), Senegal (1978-1993), and Uganda (1987-94).