This paper develops and tests a model of Japan’s household savings rate, based on the life-cycle hypothesis that the primary motive for savings is provision for retirement. The paper shows that Japan’s high household savings rate in recent decades reflects the positive influence of rapid...

The Selected Issues paper describes the nexus between household wealth, saving, and consumption, and provides estimates for the medium-term path of household saving and consumption. The paper also discusses to what extent the credit market frictions are holding back Ireland's economic recovery....

A short-run macroeconomic model is estimated for Venezuela, in order to examine the hypothesis that the availability of oil resources may entail a confidence effect—on perceived future incomes—that influences the expenditure and portfolio behavior of economic agents. Such confidence effect...

By definition, fiscal dominance impedes the effective implementation of any monetary strategy aimed at controlling inflation. Economies that exhibit oil dominance-a situation in which oil exports largely affect the main macroeconomic indicators-may also exhibit fiscal dominance. However, in this...

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

This paper reviews economic developments in Venezuela during 1995–97. The overall public sector balance shifted from a deficit of 7 percent of GDP in 1995 to a surplus of 71⁄4 percent of GDP in 1996. This massive swing was owing to a major increase in the underlying oil surplus, a decline in...

This paper describes economic developments in Venezuela during the 1990s. Economic conditions remained difficult in 1995. Continued problems in the banking system, higher public sector interest obligations, a decline in oil revenues, and deterioration in the non-oil fiscal balance kept the...