This Selected Issues paper focuses on financing constraints and productivity in Estonia. The paper examines two questions: (1) is there evidence of financing constraints among Estonian firms; and (2) have financing constraints reduced firm-level total factor productivity (TFP)? These questions...

This Selected Issues Paper on Iran reviews that monetary factors are the main determinants of inflation in the country. Government spending out of oil revenues leads to large liquidity injections that the central bank accommodates owing to its efforts to prevent a significant nominal...

This paper presents the Republic of Armenia’s report on the Observance of Standards and Codes and detailed assessment using the data quality assessment framework. Armenia exceeds Special Data Dissemination Standard requirements for both periodicity and timeliness in releases of data on...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes the empirical relationship between corporate leverage—and other indicators of financial health—and investment in Israel, using dynamic panel data techniques. The results suggest that weak balance sheets may well have contributed to the investment...

This report on the Observance of Standards and Codes data module provides a review of Mozambique’s data dissemination practices against the IMF’s General Data Dissemination System (GDDS) by in-depth assessment of the quality of the national accounts, consumer price index,...

This report on the Observance of Standards and Codes (ROSC) Data Module provides a review of Latvia’s data dissemination practices against the IMF’s Special Data Dissemination Standard (SDDS), complemented by the in-depth assessment of the quality of the national accounts, consumer...

This Selected Issues paper of Portugal highlights the discussions on the requirement of policies to overcome structural and cyclical impediments to growth, and secure fiscal consolidation. It analyzes the strength of the company balance sheets in supporting the rebound from recession, and also...

This Selected Issues paper on the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) underlies key features of business cycles. To obtain new measures of classical and growth cycles, simple rules were applied to date turning points in the classical business cycle, and a recently developed frequency domain...

This Selected Issues paper analyzes unemployment and education in Namibia. Using the Afrobarometer Project survey data, the paper develops some stylized facts about the Namibian labor market, focusing on the link between education, earnings, and unemployment. The paper finds that unemployment...

Overall competitiveness of the Dutch economy seems adequate, but domestically produced exports have lost market share recently. Over the past three decades, globalization has greatly influenced economies as countries have become more integrated. Empirical studies on business cycles...