Over the past two years, ongoing political transitions in many Arab countries have led to social unrest and an economic downturn. This paper examines comparable historical episodes of political instability to derive implications for the near- and medium-term economic outlook in the Arab...

This staff report on the Republic of Yemen’s 2013 Article IV Consultation highlights economic development and policies. The macroeconomic situation stabilized in 2012, but the recovery remains fragile. After contracting by more than 12 percent in 2011, real GDP is estimated to have grown...

This paper examines the problems in establishing currency convertibility- and the optimal timing- in formerly planned economies making the transition to market-oriented systems.

This Selected Issues paper investigates the economic importance of institutions in Ukraine, and attempts to quantify the potential benefits of market-friendly structural reforms. The paper reviews some of the key findings of the development-accounting literature, which has tried to explain the...

The Selected Issues paper provides an overview of trends, performance export growth, value added, and employment, account of the structure and evolution of Lesotho's textiles during the decade through 2002, and discusses future prospects and key issues. It analyzes the implications of the...

This paper focuses on the Fourth Review Under the Staff-Monitored Program (SMP) for Afghanistan. Under the SMP, Afghanistan continued to make progress in improving macroeconomic management, strengthening its capacity to formulate policy, and creating conditions for sustainable economic growth....

This Selected Issues paper on Morocco analyzes Morocco’s growth performance over the past thirty-five years with a special focus on the more recent past. The paper presents stylized trends in growth; it first puts the overall growth performance of Morocco in an international perspective,...

In recent years, the IMF has released a growing number of reports and other documents covering economic and financial developments and trends in member countries. Each report, prepared by a staff team after discussions with government officials, is published at the option of the member country.