Monitoring, containing and mitigating the effects of the corona virus are top priorities. Timely and decisive actions by health authorities, central banks, fiscal, regulatory and supervisory authorities can help contain the virus outbreak and offset the economic impact of the pandemic. Central...

Belgium has effected a remarkable fiscal adjustment, best illustrated by the decline in its public debt. While benefiting from an appreciable decline in interest rates, most of the underlying consolidation reflected a considerable increase in the tax burden, one of the highest in the...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the regional labor markets for Belgium. The paper examines labor market performance, and argues that a number of factors—poor worker-job matching, a compressed wage structure, and low geographical mobility—contribute to economic disparities. The paper...

The GCC growth model has delivered substantial improvements in living standards over several decades. Access to foreign labor has supported rapid growth in the non-oil sector and price stability in the region. It has also resulted in positive spillovers to the migrant-sending countries through...

In designing policy measures, including possible social safety nets, targeted to the poor, it is important to fully understand the efficiency implications of these measures. There is abundant macroeconomic literature on their negative effects on the poor’s work effort. The literature, however,...

The paper examines labor market developments in the four hard-peg European Union (EU) accession candidates during transition, with a view toward understanding the persistent high unemployment experienced in each country. Despite the significant levels of unemployment in all four countries, labor...

This paper sets out Management's response to the Independent Evaluation Office's (IEO) evaluation of IMF Response to the Financial and Economic Crisis. The implementation plan proposes specific actions focusing on the three of the four recommendations that received broad support from the...

The IMF Executive Board has been considering reforms to strengthen the Fund's mandate to better equip the institution to safeguard global stability. Executive Directors have supported a range of reforms to modernize the Fund's surveillance mandate and modalities. This paper focuses on selected...

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...