Middle East and Central Asia > Yemen, Republic of

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Shahid Yusuf
Since the onset of the Arab Spring, economic uncertainty in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, and Yemen (Arab Countries in Transition, ACTs) has slowed already sluggish growth; worsened unemployment, particularly of youth; undermined business confidence, affected tourist arrivals, and depressed domestic and foreign direct investment. Furthermore, political and social tensions have constrained reform efforts. Assessing policy options as presented in the voluminous literature on the Arab Spring and based on cross-country experience, this paper concludes that sustainable and inclusive growth calls for a two pronged approach: short term measures that revive growth momentum and partially allay popular concerns; complemented with efforts to adjust the public’s expectations and prepare the ground for structural reforms that will deliver the desired longer tem performance.
International Monetary Fund
In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.
Mr. Luca A Ricci
and
Ms. Catherine A Pattillo
This paper assesses the non linear impact of external debt on growth using a large panel data set of 93 developing countries over 1969–98. Results are generally robust across different econometric methodologies, regression specifications, and different debt indicators. For a country with average indebtedness, doubling the debt ratio would reduce annual per capita growth by between half and a full percentage point. The differential in per capita growth between countries with external indebtedness (in net present value) below 100 percent of exports and above 300 percent of exports seems to be in excess of 2 percent per annum. For countries that are to benefit from debt reduction under the current HIPC initiative, per capita growth might increase by 1 percentage point, unless constrained by other macroeconomic and structural economic distortions. Our findings also suggest that the average impact of debt becomes negative at about 160–170 percent of exports or 35–40 percent of GDP. The marginal impact of debt starts being negative at about half of these values. High debt appears to reduce growth mainly by lowering the efficiency of investment rather than its volume.
International Monetary Fund. Statistics Dept.

Abstract

This paper presents the Supplement on international reserves, the sixth in the series of supplements to International Financial Statistics (IFS) that comprises textual material commencing with an historical perspective of international reserves. This is followed by a discussion on the methodology covering the concepts underlying the reserves data in IFS: the data collection and presentation procedures; the related data in the money and banking, and balance-of-payments sections in IFS; and a summary of the national concepts of reserves. Statistics on international reserves are important indicators of the external economic performance of countries. A country's holdings of international reserves represent its ability to meet balance of payments needs through official financial settlements. The establishment of the IMF led to the creation of a reserve asset in the form of a gold tranche position reflecting a member's subscription to the IMF in gold. To the extent that the IMF made use of a member's currency in drawings of other countries, a creation of new reserves was involved.

Mr. Mohsin S. Khan
and
Mr. Morris Goldstein

Abstract

One of the more important yet puzzling aspects of the recent global stagflation has been the rather surprising resiliency of growth rates of real income in non-oil developing countries during the 1973-80 period in the face of the marked slowdown of corresponding growth rates in the industrial world. The primary purpose of this paper is to shed some light on this phenomenon by examining the relationship between the rate of economic growth in the non-oil developing countries and that in the industrial countries over the past decade or so.

Mr. Ulrich Baumgartner
,
Mr. G. G. Johnson
,
K. Burke Dillon
,
R. C. Williams
,
Mr. Peter M Keller
,
Maria Tyler
,
Bahram Nowzad
,
Mr. G. Russell Kincaid
, and
Mr. Tomás Reichmann

Abstract

The external indebtedness of non-oil developing countries has been of growing concern in recent years. Several factors have brought the debt issue to the forefront of the problems facing a number of countries, including the rapid rise in extenal debt in the recent past, changes in the composition of debt (toward a greater proportion owed to commercial banks) and the attendant deterioration in the terms of debt, and the rise in debt service resulting from these developments.