This Selected Issues paper on Ghana shows that as a small, open low-income economy, the country faces several major challenges in its conduct of disinflation policy. Ghana has historically experienced volatile and often high inflation rates. The paper also presents a model that recognizes...

This Selected Issues paper reviews trends in GDP and their impact on poverty reduction in Ghana. It highlights structural constraints that are believed to have affected output growth, along with potential sources of increases in output in future years. The paper analyzes trends in the main...

This Selected Issues paper reviews public service reform in Ghana. The paper highlights that a range of public service reform initiatives have been undertaken in Ghana since the early 1980s. The public service in Ghana is composed of centrally managed agencies, ministries, subvented agencies,...

This paper reviews trends in GDP and other macroeconomic variables since independence. It assesses the performance of the different sectors of the economy and expenditure categories. The paper identifies a number of products that could contribute to maintaining the high growth rate that...

This Selected Issues paper examines competitiveness and the equilibrium real exchange rate for Ghana. It estimates a behavioral equilibrium exchange rate model for Ghana to establish to what extent real effective exchange rate (REER) movements have been driven by an adjustment to its equilibrium...

The Fund has made good progress over the past two years in integrating macrofinancial analysis into Article IV surveillance for a wide range of members. Building on past work to enhance financial sector analysis, Fund staff has sought to develop a consistent and forward-looking view on how the...

The past five years have seen an expansion of the scope of FSAPs to assess countries' macroprudential policy (MaPP) frameworks. This note documents this increase and offers some suggestions on how the treatment of MaPP issues in FSAPs can be further strengthened and better integrated into the...

The Financial Sector Assessment Program (FSAP), established in 1999, is an in-depth assessment of a country's financial sector. It is an important element of the Fund's surveillance and provides input to the Article IV consultations. In developing and emerging market countries, FSAP assessments...

Indonesia’s growth in 2009 was four and a half percent, the third highest in the G-20 group of countries; and the pace is accelerating in 2010. Both push and pull factors have attracted large portfolio inflows, particularly into government bonds and Short-term Bank Indonesia certificates...

The Timorese economy has improved owing to high oil-financed public spending and a rebound in agriculture, non-oil growth. Despite high bank deposit growth, private sector credit has remained stagnant. The medium-term outlook for growth is positive. Timor-Leste’s key challenge remains to use...