In its surveillance activities, the Fund is frequently confronted with the difficult problem of how to identify exchange rate behavior that is unrelated to underlying economic and financial conditions and, consequently, should be viewed with concern from a national or international standpoint....

This paper reviews and analyzes broad developments and considers specific policy measures to foster saving. The chapter also describes trends in national saving rates of industrial countries in recent years and briefly discusses the prospects over the medium term. The paper also discusses the...

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 reviews the literature on factors which affect saving and capital formation in industrialized countries. Problems of measurement are briefly examined. Evidence of the effect on the rate of saving of real rates of return, income redistribution, allocation of saving between corporations...

A two-country theoretical model is presented, showing the effects of monetary, fiscal, and supply-side disturbances on prices of primary commodities and manufactured goods, and on exchange rates. If monetary shocks dominate, then commodity prices should lead general price movements, and the...

The paper shows that an increase in the aggregate fiscal deficit of the industrial countries may worsen the economic growth and fiscal balance of the developing countries that are burdened with external debt and facing current account constraints. The discussion is based on theoretical analysis...

This paper explains different features of the MULTI-region econometric MODel (MULTIMOD). MULTIMOD is designed to examine the effects on that baseline of scenarios that involve changes in policies in major countries and other exogenous changes in the economic environment. The Mark II version...

In this paper, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have drawn together available research findings on the benefits of trade liberalization as well as on the obstacles to trade-oriented development

This paper investigates how developments during and after the 2008-09 crisis have changed economists' and policymakers' views on: (i) fiscal risks and fiscal sustainability; (ii) the effectiveness of fiscal policy as a countercyclical tool; (iii) the appropriate design of fiscal adjustment...