The paper describes a global model consisting of several industrial and developing country blocks built to analyze alternative economic policies in a medium-term context. The model, which has been used to construct medium-term scenarios for the World Economic Outlook, consists of aggregate...

This paper develops a simple model for measuring potential output that uses data on inflation, unemployment, and capacity utilization. We apply the model to 10 countries, in addition to the United States and the euro area. While there is a substantial amount of uncertainty around our estimates,...

Like most Sub-Saharan African countries, Kenya’s economic growth appears to have been primarily driven by factor accumulation. The Selected Issues paper and Statistical Appendix for Kenya examines economic developments and policies. During the last two decades, Kenya has been plagued by...

The paper examines empirically the question of whether more unequal societies spend more on income redistribution than their more egalitarian counterparts. Theoretical arguments on this issue are inconclusive. The political economy literature suggests that redistributive spending is higher in...

This paper investigates the relationship between unrecorded economic activity associated with the production of illicit coca and formally recorded economic activity in Peru. It does so by attempting to construct new regional level estimates for coca production and by implementing recently...

Government spending plays a critical role in protecting and enforcing rights and civil liberties. Empirical evidence for a sample of industrial and developing countries shows that government expenditures on defense, law and order, social security, education, and health care are associated with...

Hong Kong SAR's government faces the dual challenges of volatile revenue and medium term spending pressures arising from a rapidly aging population. Age-related spending pressures raise long-run sustainability concerns, while revenue volatility creates risks to service provision, possibly...

The macroeconomic environment of Japan has constantly been under pressure owing to rising public debt and fiscal deficits. Credit demand has been limited and has shown weak profitability. Growing risks have heightened concerns about a possible feedback to financial stability. This report...

Armenia’s growing financial system is dominated by banks, and its regulatory and supervisory system is robust. The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has recommended the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) to develop a program to gather information and monitor the hedging...

This Financial System Stability Assessment on France discusses the French financial system and the restructuring of French banks to different business models. The French banking system weathered the 2007–09 global financial crisis well. The large French banks have announced plans to meet...