The International Monetary Fund's Executive Board regularly reviews progress and developments under the Data Standards Initiatives. The last review-Eighth Review-undertaken in February 2012 introduced the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) Plus. In light of the long experience under the...

This paper informs the Executive Board of the staff-level understandings reached with global Standard Setting Bodies (SSBs) on the use of the three financial sector supervisory standards in FSAPs: the Basel Committee's Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision (BCP), set by the Basel...

This Supplement describes how the staff proposes to achieve further synergies by mapping the DQAF into the metadata structure of the DQP's other key component: (3) the data transparency initiatives comprising the Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) and General Data Dissemination System (GDDS)

Standards assessments serve several important objectives but are not well integrated into Fund surveillance. Financial standards assessments, when undertaken in the context of FSAPs, are used to identify weaknesses in financial regulation and supervision, or other areas covered by international...

The Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS) was established by the IMF in 1996 to guide members that already had, or that might seek, access to international capital markets in providing key economic and financial data to the public. In the following year, the IMF established the General Data...

Of the new members entering the European Union (EU) in May 2004, several had achieved a decade of impressive export growth, expanding significantly their shares of world markets. The empirical analysis shows that over the period 1994–2004, quality and technology upgrading associated with the...

Trade among the CMEA countries will soon be conducted at world prices and in convertible currencies. These are crucial steps in economic reform but will worsen Eastern Europe’s terms of trade and drive it into current account deficit with the USSR. Proposals have been made for a payments...

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and...

Real wage declines have been common in the public sector in many countries over substantial periods of time. In several cases, such wage reductions have coincided with a decline in the efficiency of the public sector. In a simple analytical framework, it is shown that higher wage levels alter...